Ten Years to LISA: New Challenges and Opportunities in Multimessenger/Multiband Science

For more information and to register, see: https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/workshops/LISA/.

For the purpose of this Overview, “multimessenger astronomy” stands for “multimessenger including gravitational waves”, and “multiband” means “multiple gravitational-wave bands”. Multimessenger astronomy, in this sense, began with a bang with the LIGO-Virgo detection of GWs from the merger of two neutron stars, GW170817, an event that was soon observed in most EM bands. While there was an expectation in the field that NS mergers powered some short gamma-ray bursts (sGRBs) and models of their subsequent radioactive decay (kilonova) existed, confirmation of these theories occurred only from GW170817. Details of these events, like the delay between the GW and GRB signals and the GRB strength, however, led to new insights into their pre-merger environments and the dependence on viewing angle of the jet’s appearance.

Astrophysicists’ predictions of the EM signals that will accompany LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) events may be even less advanced than sGRB models prior to GW170817 and share a lack of confirming evidence. This conference is premised on the viewpoint that this relative ignorance represents an opportunity, or, really, several opportunities. There is important work to be done i) using past and upcoming observations (both EM and GW) to constrain event rates and search for the signatures of LISA-type events before LISA turns on; and ii) using astrophysical models to predict the multimessenger and multiband signals that will accompany LISA signals.

We have about ten years to work on this before LISA and Nature start to give us some of the answers. It is our belief that such work done before LISA starts taking data will almost surely help us maximize the science we extract. (And we expect that will be true even if most of our predictions are not ultimately borne out by observations.)

With the above as motivation, this Conference will give overviews of the sorts of EM & GW observations that we expect to be made over the next 10+ years and how they relate to LISA. And it will suggest LISA multimessenger/multiband science investigations that could be started now. Our main goal is to help stimulate new, important work in these areas.

For more information and to register, see: https://science.jpl.nasa.gov/workshops/LISA/.