Papers › Prospects of gravitational-waves detections from common-envelope evolution with LISA
Prospects of gravitational-waves detections from common-envelope evolution with LISA
M. Renzo, T. Callister, K. Chatziioannou, L. A. C. van Son, C. M. F. Mingarelli, M. Cantiello, K. E. S. Ford, B. McKernan, G. Ashton
The archive published only this paper's code-link row. Authors, date and abstract are from arXiv's metadata (CC0), read from the Kaggle arXiv metadata snapshot of 2026-09-12 where its title matched the archive's; the title is the archive's.
Understanding common envelope (CE) evolution is an outstanding problem in binary evolution. Although the CE phase is not driven by gravitational-wave (GW) emission, the in-spiraling binary emits GWs that passively trace the CE dynamics. Detecting this GW signal would provide direct insight into the gas-driven physics. Even a non-detection might offer invaluable constraints. We investigate the prospects of detection of a Galactic CE by LISA. While the dynamical phase of the CE is likely sufficiently loud for detection, it is short and thus rare. We focus instead on the self-regulated phase that proceeds on a thermal timescale. Based on population synthesis calculations and the (unknown) signal duration in the LISA band, we expect ∼0.1-100 sources in the Galaxy during the mission duration. We map the GW observable parameter space of frequency f_(GW) and its derivative ḟ_(GW) remaining agnostic on the specifics of the inspiral, and find that signals with SNR>10 are possible if the CE stalls at separations such that f_(GW)≳2×10⁻³ Hz. We investigate the possibility of misidentifying the signal with other known sources. If the second derivative f̈_(GW) can also be measured, the signal can be distinguished from other sources using a GW braking-index. Alternatively, coupling LISA with electromagnetic observations of peculiar red giant stars and/or infrared and optical transients might allow for the disentangling of a Galactic CE from other Galactic and extra-galactic GW sources.
Code
Repository list and official/mentioned flags are the archive's, frozen 2025-07-28. Reachability, where shown, is from one Syntology probe window (2026-09-16 to 2026-09-18); repositories not probed show nothing. GitHub stars are not tracked.
Code Syntology ran Syntology
Not run by Syntology. Nothing on this page verifies that the listed code works.
Results from the paper archive 2025-07-28
No leaderboard rows for this paper in the archive.
Report a problem or propose a change · a person checks every report against the paper or source before anything changes; decisions are listed on /corrections