{"about":{"site":"https://codewithpapers.app","non_affiliation":"Code with Papers and Syntology are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Papers with Code, Meta, or the pwc-archive mirror.","licence":"CC BY-SA 4.0","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","attribution":"https://codewithpapers.app/attribution","modified":"archive material modified by Syntology; see the attribution page"},"url":"/paper/prospects-of-gravitational-waves-detections","title":"Prospects of gravitational-waves detections from common-envelope evolution with LISA","arxiv_id":"2102.00078","date":"2021-01-29","proceeding":null,"authors":["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"],"abstract":"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 $\\sim 0.1-100$ sources in the Galaxy during the mission duration. We map the GW observable parameter space of frequency $f_\\mathrm{GW}$ and its derivative $\\dot f_\\mathrm{GW}$ remaining agnostic on the specifics of the inspiral, and find that signals with $\\mathrm{SNR}>10$ are possible if the CE stalls at separations such that $f_\\mathrm{GW}\\gtrsim2\\times10^{-3}\\,\\mathrm{Hz}$. We investigate the possibility of misidentifying the signal with other known sources. If the second derivative $\\ddot f_\\mathrm{GW}$ 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.","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2102.00078v2","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2102.00078v2.pdf","source":{"archive":"pwc-archive (Hugging Face), CC BY-SA 4.0","snapshot":"2025-07-28","licence_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode","row_kind":"links_only","authors_date_abstract":"arXiv metadata, CC0 1.0 (https://info.arxiv.org/help/license), from the Kaggle arXiv metadata snapshot of 2026-09-12"},"code_links":[{"paper_slug":"prospects-of-gravitational-waves-detections","repo_url":"https://github.com/tcallister/LISA-and-CE-Evolution","is_official":1,"mentioned_in_paper":1,"mentioned_in_github":1,"framework":"none","reach":null}],"tasks":[],"methods":[],"datasets_introduced":[],"methods_introduced":[],"results":[],"syntology":{"syntology_url":null,"atlas_url":null,"mcp":null,"developers":"https://syntology.ai/developers"},"arxiv_metadata":null,"syntology_extracted_results":null}