Abstract:

A brief overview will be presented of the design parameters, capabilities and main science goals of the proposed Laser Interferometer Space Antenna. Several areas will be highlighted in some more detail, such as the potential and limitations of black hole binary waveforms as distance estimators for precision cosmology, and detection of gravitational wave backgrounds due to cosmic superstrings. Finally, a newly conjectured quantum-gravity effect will be described: “holographic uncertainty,'' a fundamental quantum indeterminacy of eigenstates of transverse position or angle that may be observable with LISA or with suitably designed ground based interferometers.