The conference website for Ten Years to LISA: New Challenges and Opportunities in Multimessenger/Multiband Science is now online.
This is a hybrid meeting, meaning participation can be virtual or in-Person. Dates: April 1-3, 2025. In-Person Location: von Karman Auditorium, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Conference Overview: Motivation and Format
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.
The format for the conference is as follows. We have divided our subject into eight topics. Over the course of the three-day conference, there will be eight sessions: one devoted to each topic. For each session, we have found a topical expert who has agreed to chair that session. The Session Chairs will build their sessions using some combination of invited talks and talks contributed via this website. It will be up to each Session Chair to construct their session as they think best.
This a hybrid conference, meaning participation can be either in-person or online. There is zero registration fee for either in-person or remote attendance. However, we recommend that you attend in person, if you can, to benefit from the side discussions that are important part of any conference. We plan to limit talks to about six hours per day, to leave plenty of time for such side discussions.
Important Dates:
- Monday, December 23, 2025 – Registration open
- Tuesday, February 4, 2025 – Deadline for abstract submission for presentations and posters
- Monday, February 24, 2025 – Registration closes for attendees from these Designated Countries who are attending in person
- Monday, March 10, 2025 – Registration closes
- Friday, March 28, 2025 – Deadline for submission of talks
Please register here.
Co-Organizers:
- Katerina Chatziioannou, California Institute of Technology
- Curt Cutler, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
- Michele Vallisneri, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
For any questions please contact multilisa_oc(at)jpl.nasa.gov.
Workshop Sessions
- EM Telescopes and Observations – From now to 2040
- Gravitational-Wave Telescopes and Observations – From now to 2040
- Galactic Binaries
- Joint LISA + Ground-Based Observations of Stellar-Mass Binaries
- EM Counterparts to GW Signals from MBHBs
- The Population of LISA MBHBs: What we have learned from simulations
- The Population of LISA MBHBs: Inference from Current & Future Observations
- EMRIs
Conference Website
Workshop Agenda
Workshop Agenda
Workshop Presentations
Day 1 Presentations
Current ground based detectors and their likely evolution to 2040
PTAs – evolution of the network and its sensitivity
How Can the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED) Support LISA?
The value of Direct Acceleration Measurements
Day 2 Presentations
Insights and Predictions from GRMHD Simulations of Supermassive Black Hole Mergers: Shaping Future Observational Strategies
The status of black hole binary waveform modeling and the requirements for LISA
Stars or gas? Constraining the hardening processes of massive black-hole binaries with LISA
Tracking on-the-fly massive black hole binary evolution and coalescence in galaxy simulations: RAMCOAL
A Self-Consistent Data-Driven Approach to Modeling Massive Galaxies, Black Hole Growth and Merger Rates
Understanding Massive Black Hole Seed Mergers: Insights from the MAGICS Simulations and Implications for LISA Observations
Bringing LISA’s Massive Black Hole Binaries to Light: From Theory to Observations
Electromagnetic Predictions of Accreting Black Hole Binary Systems from GRMHD Simulations
Electromagnetic signatures of massive black hole mergers
Multimessenger prospects for massive black hole binaries in LISA
Identifying GW-driven massive black hole binaries in LSST using Bayesian Analysis
Day 3 Presentations
The diverse outcomes of massive white dwarf binary mergers
Milky Way structure and morphology from its gravitational wave signal
Formation of Black Hole–White Dwarf X-ray Binaries in Globular Clusters
Zwicky Transient Search for Ultra-compact Galactic Binaries
Orbital evolution of ultracompact binaries driven by gravitational waves and mass transfer
The Galactic center with GRAVITY(+) and the ELT: what can we learn before LISA flies?
SgrA∗ spin and mass estimates through the detection of an extremely large mass-ratio inspiral
Small-mass-ratio binary modeling: Making EMRI waveforms for LISA great again!
Extracting EMRIs in the LISA Global Fit
Stellar-Mass Binaries in LISA: Prospects and Data Analysis Challenges
LISA’s role in understanding how stellar-mass binary black holes form
LISA+3G coherent multiband parameter estimation of BBHs using PyCBC
SFT: a scalable data-analysis framework for long-duration gravitational-wave signals
A Sea of Black Holes: Characterizing the LISA Signature for Stellar-Origin Black Hole Binaries
LISA double white dwarf binaries as Galactic accelerometers