Speaker: Prof. William Joseph Weber (Università di Trento e INFN)
Title: THE LISA GRAVITATIONAL WAVE OBSERVATORY
Abstract:
The European Space Agency (ESA) has recently adopted the Laser
Interferometry Space Antenna (LISA) for implementation as the second
"Large Mission" of the Cosmic Vision program, with a target launch date of
2035. LISA aims to create an orbiting observatory for gravitational waves,
opening the astrophysically rich band from 0.1 mHz to 1 Hz. It will use laser
interferometry to measure the gravitational tidal deformation on a
constellation of geodesic reference test masses, which are free-falling
inside three drag-free satellites at the corners of an orbiting triangular
configuration with sidelength 2.5 million km.
This talk will introduce the scientific scope of an observatory in the mHz band and then focus on the main experimental challenges, of picometer interferometry between
distant spacecraft and sub-femto-g free-falling test masses
