  The space-based gravitational wave detector LISA will observe in the
low-frequency gravitational-wave band (0.1 mHz up to 1 Hz). LISA will search
for a variety of expected signals, and when it detects a signal it will have to
determine a number of parameters, such as the location of the source on the sky
and the signal's polarisation. This requires pattern-matching, called matched
filtering, which uses the best available theoretical predictions about the
characteristics of waveforms. All the estimates of the sensitivity of LISA to
various sources assume that the data analysis is done in the optimum way.
Because these techniques are unfamiliar to many young physicists, I use the
first part of this lecture to give a very basic introduction to time-series
data analysis, including matched filtering. The second part of the lecture
applies these techniques to LISA, showing how estimates of LISA's sensitivity
can be made, and briefly commenting on aspects of the signal-analysis problem
that are special to LISA.
