Numerical simulation of sky localization for LISA-TAIJI joint observation

Abstract

LISA is considered to be launched alongside the Athena to probe the energetic astrophysical processes. LISA can determine the direction of sources for Athena's follow-up observation. As another space gravitational wave mission, TAIJI is expected to be launched in the 2030s. The LISA-TAIJI network would provide abundant merits for sources understanding. In this work, we simulate the joint LISA-TAIJI observations for gravitational waves from coalescing supermassive black hole binaries and monochromatic sources. By using the numerical mission orbits, we evaluate the performances of sky localization for various time-delay interferometry channels. For 30 days observation until coalescence, the LISA-TAIJI network in optimal operation can localize all simulated binary sources, \((10^7,\ 3.3 \times 10^6)\ M_\odot\), \((10^6,\ 3.3 \times 10^5)\ M_\odot\) and \((10^5,\ 3.3 \times 10^4)\ M_\odot\) at redshift \(z=2\), in 0.4 deg\(^2\) (field of view of Wide Field Imager on Athena). The angular resolution can be improved by more than 10 times comparing to LISA or TAIJI single detector at a given percentage of population. The improvements for monochromatic sources at 3 mHz and 10 mHz are relatively moderate in one-year observation. The precision of sky localization could be improved by around 1 to 3 times comparing to single LISA at a given percentage of sources. For a simulated 90 days observation for monochromatic waves, the LISA-TAIJI network still represents a considerable localization advantage which could be more than 10 times better.