Solution to the galactic foreground problem for LISA
- Department of Physics, Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana 59717 (United States)
Low frequency gravitational wave detectors, such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), will have to contend with large foregrounds produced by millions of compact galactic binaries in our galaxy. While these galactic signals are interesting in their own right, the unresolved component can obscure other sources. The science yield for the LISA mission can be improved if the brighter and more isolated foreground sources can be identified and regressed from the data. Since the signals overlap with one another, we are faced with a 'cocktail party' problem of picking out individual conversations in a crowded room. Here we present and implement an end-to-end solution to the galactic foreground problem that is able to resolve tens of thousands of sources from across the LISA band. Our algorithm employs a variant of the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method, which we call the blocked annealed Metropolis-Hastings (BAM) algorithm. Following a description of the algorithm and its implementation, we give several examples ranging from searches for a single source to searches for hundreds of overlapping sources. Our examples include data sets from the first round of mock LISA data challenges.
- OSTI ID:
- 21011040
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. D, Particles Fields, Journal Name: Physical Review. D, Particles Fields Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 75; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 0556-2821
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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