Gravitational wave science from space

Abstract

The success of ground based gravitational wave detectors has opened up new fields of astrophysical study with signals directly from black hole binaries and black hole-neutron star mergers providing the first data on the demography of stellar mass black holes. Other frequency ranges, both higher and lower than the 20–2000 Hz Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO)-Virgo detections, will provide access to studies of the supermassive black holes in the center of galaxies and advance the search for intermediate mass black holes as well as exploring possible new physics. The possibility of very high signal to noise measurements of signals from such simple, two-body sources could allow a range of very high precision tests of general relativity, probing the nature of gravity itself. This communication outlines the science potential of space borne gravitational wave observatories and the variety of missions now under consideration for launch in the new few decades.