Is there potential complementarity between LISA and pulsar timing?

Pitkin, M. and Clark, J. and Hendry, M. A. and Heng, I. S. and Messenger, C. and Toher, J. and Woan, G. (2008) Is there potential complementarity between LISA and pulsar timing? Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 122 (1): 012004. ISSN 1742-6588

Abstract

We open the discussion into how the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) observations of supermassive black-hole (SMBH) mergers (in the mass range ~ 106–108 M⊙) may be complementary to pulsar timing-based gravitational wave searches. We consider the toy model of determining pulsar distances by exploiting the fact that LISA SMBH inspiral observations can place tight parameter constraints on the signal present in pulsar timing observations. We also suggest, as a future path of research, the use of LISA ring-down observations from the most massive (gsim a few 107 M⊙) black-hole mergers, for which the inspiral stage will lie outside the LISA band, as both a trigger and constraint on searches within pulsar timing data for the inspiral stage of the merger.