Eliot Finch
Thursday February 9th 1:30PM – 2:30PM
Room U2-2016
Title: Identifying LISA verification binaries amongst the Galactic population of double white dwarfs
Abstract: Double white dwarfs (DWDs) will be the most numerous gravitational-wave (GW) sources for the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA). Uniquely among GW sources, a handful of these binaries will be known in advance from electromagnetic observations and will be guaranteed sources of detectable GWs in the LISA band; these are known as verification binaries (VBs). We analyse, in a fully Bayesian framework, all the currently known VBs with the latest design requirements for the LISA mission. We explore what can be expected from GW observations, both alone and in combination with electromagnetic observations, and estimate the VB's time to detection in the early months of LISA operations. We also show how VBs can be analysed in the (realistic) case where their GW signals compete with many other unknown binary signals (both resolved and unresolved) from the Galactic population of DWDs.