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Paper: The Influence of Mass-Transferring Systems on the Galactic Gravitational Wave Background
Volume: 372, 15th European Workshop on White Dwarfs
Page: 443
Authors: Ruiter, A.J.; Belczynski, K.; Benacquista, M.; Larson, S.L.
Abstract: Compact object binaries, mostly double white dwarfs (WDs), are expected to be a prominent source of gravitational radiation (GR) detectable with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). The LISA signal arising from double WDs will be indicative of the number of close WD binaries in the Galaxy, which will put constraints on the Galactic star formation history. At high GR frequencies, many individual systems will be resolved with LISA, offering an opportunity to determine several physical quantities which will further extend our knowledge of binary evolution and progenitors of type Ia supernovae. In LISA's low-frequency regime, the number of Galactic close double WDs is so abundant that their GR signal may rise above that of the instrumental noise level and hinder the detection of other types of GR sources. In several studies up-to-date, only detached populations of compact object binaries have been considered. Here, using population synthesis, we investigate the influence of the Galactic Roche-Lobe Overflow (RLOF) compact binaries on the shape and strength of the LISA signal, and compare our findings to the results corresponding to the signal arising exclusively from detached systems. We use the StarTrack population synthesis binary evolution code to generate the population of Galactic binary systems. We present the resulting LISA GR signal and discuss the contributions arising from each population (RLOF vs. detached systems), and comment on the importance of these populations concerning the confusion-limited regime. We find that the transition frequency at which the signal becomes confusion-limited is increased when RLOF systems are included in the calculations. Complete results will be presented in Ruiter et al. (2006 in prep., please see Belczynski et al. 2005 for preliminary results of this study).
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