ACCURACY OF PARAMETER-ESTIMATION OF GRAVITATIONAL-WAVES WITH LISA

LISA is a space-borne, laser-interferometric gravitational-wave detect or currently under study by the European Space Agency. We give a brief introduction about the main features of the detector, concentrating o n its one-year orbital motion around the Sun. We compute how the ampli tude as well as the phase of a gravitational wave are modulated due to this motion by transforming an arbitrary gravitational-wave signal in a reference frame that is rigidly fixed to the arms of the detector. To see how LISA works the detector response to a gravitational wave wh ich is purely monochromatic in the barycentric frame will be discussed . A brief review of the theory of parameter estimation, based on the w ork of Finn and Cutler, will be given. Following this theory the detec tion of a gravitational-wave signal buried in detector noise was simul ated numerically. We interpret the results of this simulation to deter mine the angular resolution of LISA.