Gravitational Wave Emission from Tight White Dwarf Binary Systems Formed Through Common Envelope Evolution 408 views

With the upcoming launch of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), the next natural candidates for merger observations are White Dwarf binaries. Current stellar mass candidates for gravitational wave sources suggest the existence of a mechanism which turns high period systems into low period ones. That is, if we hope to see mergers of such low-mass objects within the age of the Universe. In this paper we follow Iben.Jr,Tutukov.(1986)[1] to explore the different possible channels of mass transfer, Common Envelope Evolution and Stable mass transfer, as candidates for such mechanism. Using binary population synthesis code we evolve Helium White Dwarf binaries to attain a final mass and separation distribution. Our simulations found several configurations of initial masses and separation that lead to gravitational wave emission merger within the desired time frame. We also find a higher likelihood trend towards lower merger times in our results, ranging from 1.5x10^(-5) to 200 times the Age of the Universe. We determine stable mass transfer leads to the lowest merger times, but a mass gap around 0.25 solar masses. Unstable mass transfer leads to a lower mass discrepancy with Iben.Jr,Tutukov.(1986)[1]

BS (Bachelor of Science)

Common Envelope; Gravitational Waves; LISA; White Dwarf ; Binary

English

2018-05-12