Figure 5

Figure 5: The right panel plots the noise amplitude spectrum, ∘ ------- f Sh(f), in three generations of ground-based interferometers. For the sake of clarity, we have only plotted initial and advanced LIGO and a possible third generation detector sensitivities. VIRGO has similar sensitivity to LIGO at the initial and advanced stages, and may surpass it at lower frequencies. Also shown are the expected amplitude spectrum of various narrow and broad-band astrophysical sources. The left panel is the same as the right except for the LISA detector. The SMBH sources are assumed to lie at a redshift of z = 1, but LISA can detect these sources with a good SNR practically anywhere in the universe. The curve labelled “Galactic WDBs” is the confusion background from the unresolvable Galactic population of white dwarf binaries.