Abstract. The gravitational-wave sky is expected to have isolated bright sources superimposed on a diffuse gravitational-wave background. The background radiation has two components: a confusion limited background from unresolved astrophysical sources; and a cosmological component formed during the birth of the universe. A map of the gravitational-wave background can be made by sweeping a gravitational-wave detector across the sky. The detector output is a complicated convolution of the sky luminosity distribution, the detector response function and the scan pattern. Here we study the general deconvolution problem, and show how LIGO (laser interferometric gravitational observatory) and LISA (laser interferometer space antenna) can be used to detect anisotropies in the gravitational-wave background.

PACS numbers: 0430, 0480

Print publication: Issue 20 (21 October 2001)
Received 29 May 2001
Published 1 October 2001