Disentangling Coalescing Neutron-Star-White-Dwarf Binaries for LISA

• Published in: Physical review letters Vol. 121; no. 13; p. 131105
• Main Author: Tauris, Thomas M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 28.09.2018
• ISSN: 1079-7114
• DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.131105

The prime candidate sources for the upcoming space-borne gravitational wave (GW) observatory LISA are the numerous Galactic tight binaries of white dwarfs (WDs) and neutron stars (NSs), many of which will coalesce and undergo mass transfer, leading to simultaneous emission of x rays and GWs. Here, detailed and coherent numerical stellar models are explored for the formation and evolution of these systems, including finite-temperature effects and complete calculations of mass transfer from a WD to a NS accretor. Evolutionary tracks of characteristic strain amplitude are computed, and the unique pattern of their evolution in the GW frequency-dynamical chirp mass parameter space enables a firm identification of the nature of the systems. Furthermore, it is demonstrated that a precise detection of the chirp allows determination of the NS mass to an accuracy of a few percent; with applications to constraining its equation of state, in particular for dual-line GW sources observed simultaneously at high and low frequencies.