GETTING ASTROPHYSICAL INFORMATION FROM LISA DATA

Gravitational wave signals from a large number of astrophysical source s will be present in the LISA data. Information about as many sources as possible must be estimated from time series of strain measurements. Several types of signals are expected to be present: simple periodic signals from relatively stable binary systems, chirped signals from co alescing binary systems, complex waveforms from highly relativistic bi nary systems, stochastic backgrounds from galactic and extragalactic b inary systems and possibly stochastic backgrounds from the early Unive rse. The orbital motion of the LISA antenna will modulate the phase an d amplitude of all these signals, except the isotropic backgrounds and thereby give information on the directions of sources. Here we descri be a candidate process for disentangling the gravitational wave signal s and estimating the relevant astrophysical parameters from one year o f LISA data. Nearly all of the sources will be identified by searching with templates based on source parameters and directions.