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Mapping the gravitational-wave background

Neil J Cornish

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The gravitational-wave sky is expected to have isolated bright sources superimposed on a diffuse gravitational-wave background. The background radiation has two components: a confusion limited background from unresolved astrophysical sources; and a cosmological component formed during the birth of the universe. A map of the gravitational-wave background can be made by sweeping a gravitational-wave detector across the sky. The detector output is a complicated convolution of the sky luminosity distribution, the detector response function and the scan pattern. Here we study the general deconvolution problem, and show how LIGO (laser interferometric gravitational observatory) and LISA (laser interferometer space antenna) can be used to detect anisotropies in the gravitational-wave background.


PACS

04.80.Nn Gravitational wave detectors and experiments

07.60.Ly Interferometers

98.80.Bp Origin and formation of the Universe

95.55.Ym Gravitational radiation detectors; mass spectrometers; and other instrumentation and techniques

MSC

83C35 Gravitational waves

85A40 Cosmology (For relativistic cosmology, see 83F05)

Subjects

Instrumentation and measurement

Gravitation and cosmology

Astrophysics and astroparticles

Dates

Issue 20 (21 October 2001)

Received 29 May 2001

Published 1 October 2001



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