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At the LISA International Science Team (LIST) meeting of December 2005, in Pasadena, the Working Group on Data Analysis (LIST-WG1B) established a taskforce to organize several rounds of mock data challenges, with the dual purpose of fostering the development of LISA data analysis tools and capabilities, and of demonstrating the technical readiness already achieved by the gravitational-wave community in distilling a rich science payoff from the LISA data output. The LISA Mock Data Challenges were proposed and discussed at meetings organized by the US and European LISA Project that were attended by a broad cross section of the international gravitational-wave community. These challenges are meant to be blind tests, but not really a contest.

The Mock LISA Data Challenge (MLDC) Taskforce has been working since the beginning of this year to formulate challenge problems of maximum efficacy, to establish criteria for the evaluation of the analyses, to develop standard models of the LISA mission (orbit, noises) and of the LISA sources (waveforms, parameterization), to provide computing tools such as LISA response simulators, source waveform generators, and a Mock Data Challenge file format, and more generally to provide any technical support necessary to the challengers, including moderated discussion forums and a software repository. The activities of the MLDC Taskforce can be tracked on the WG1B website, (www.tapir.caltech.edu/dokuwiki/listwg1b:home), where you will find the contact list, working materials, and teleconference minutes. The taskforce welcomes contributions and feedback from any interested parties. Questions and comments can be sent to the MLDC co-chairs, Michele Vallisneri (vallis@caltech.edu) and Alberto Vecchio (av@star.sr.bham.ac.uk).

Meetings:

The LIST working groups will be meeting immediately prior to the LISA Symposium (lisa6.gsfc.nasa.gov) on Saturday, June 17th in Greenbelt Maryland. The main topic for the WG1B meeting will be the materials produced by the MLDC taskforce. The goal of the meeting is to inform interested parties and to gather feedback. The recommendations of the MLDC taskforce will be presented for adoption at the executive session on the LIST on Sunday, June 18th.

The first set of challenge datasets will be released during the 6th LISA Symposium (June 19-23, 2006, at Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland). There will be an afternoon session at the symposium where the challenges will be described and tutorials will be given on the use of the datasets and the MLDC tools. The challenges will involve the distribution of several datasets, encoded in a simple standard format, and containing combinations of realistic simulated LISA noise with the signals from one or more LISA gravitational-wave sources of parameters unknown to the challenge participants.

It is envisaged that the results of the first MLDCs will be presented to the broad community and discussed in a dedicated session at the 11th Gravitational-Wave Data Analysis Workshop (December 18-21, 2006, at the Albert Einstein Institute, in Golm, Germany; see the website gwdaw11.aei.mpg.de). The second and third sets of challenge datasets, embodying more ambitious data-analysis problems, will be released in December 2006, with target timeframes for the completion of the analyses in June and December 2007. Informal meetings and/or teleconferences will be scheduled in consultation with the participants to discuss progress, issues and preliminary/final results. The attendance to the LISA Symposium and to the GWDAWs is therefore not required to participate in the challenges, since all challenge materials and results will be available online.

Neil Cornish & Bernard Schutz
LIST WG1B co-chairs