Detecting and Mitigating Instrumental Glitches in LISA Data

The space-based gravitational wave observatory LISA has been designed to sense waves at millihertz frequencies coming from galactic binaries and extreme mass-ratio inspirals, among other sources. A technology-demonstration mission, LISA Pathfinder, was launched in 2015 and observed several unexpected changes in test mass acceleration, or "glitches." Due to the small amplitude of gravitational waves, extreme stability of the test masses is needed, so it is important to assess how similar glitches on LISA will affect our measurements. Time Delay Interferometry (TDI) is the primary data product of the observatory which combines interferometric signals on-board and between the three spacecraft to maximize sensitivity to gravitational waves. We present simulations of the detector's TDI response to similar glitches, and propose a method for detecting and removing the effects from TDI data. As a test case, we apply the technique to the LISA Data Challenge, a simulated dataset containing glitches.