Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2409.09159

Evaluating the gravitational wave detectability of globular clusters and the Magellanic Clouds for LISA

Wouter G. J. van Zeist·Gijs Nelemans·Simon F. Portegies Zwart·Jan J. Eldridge
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

We use the stellar evolution code BPASS and the gravitational wave simulation code LEGWORK to simulate populations of compact binaries that may be detected by the in-development space-based gravitational wave (GW) detector LISA. Specifically, we simulate the Magellanic Clouds and binary populations mimicking several globular clusters, neglecting dynamical effects. We find that the Magellanic Clouds would have a handful of detectable sources each, but for globular clusters the amount of detectable sources would be less than one. We compare our results to earlier research and find that our predicted numbers are several tens of times lower than calculations using the stellar evolution code BSE that take dynamical effects into account, but also calculations using the stellar evolution code SeBa for the Magellanic Clouds. This correlates with earlier research which compared BPASS models for GW sources in the Galactic disk with BSE models and found a similarly sized discrepancy. We analyse and explain this discrepancy as being caused by differences between the stellar evolution codes, particularly in the treatment of mass transfer and common-envelope events in binaries, where in BPASS mass transfer is more likely to be stable and tends to lead to less orbital shrinkage in the common-envelope phase than in other codes. This difference results in fewer compact binaries with periods short enough to be detected by LISA existing in the BPASS population. For globular clusters, we conclude that the impact of dynamical effects is uncertain from the literature, but the differences in stellar evolution have an effect of a factor of a few tens.

Explore related subjects

gr-qcastro-ph.GA

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Wouter G. J. van Zeist, Gijs Nelemans, Simon F. Portegies Zwart, Jan J. Eldridge. 2024-09-13. Evaluating the gravitational wave detectability of globular clusters and the Magellanic Clouds for LISA. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202451026

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Electrovacuum Black Hole Uniqueness

We prove the black hole uniqueness conjecture in the axially symmetric, stationary, electrovacuum setting, subject to the refined asymptotic analysis of the associated singular harmonic maps, which includes an analyticity hypothesis at the axes. More precisely, it is shown that any asymptotically flat solution of the Einstein--Maxwell equations in this class, with more than one black hole horizon component is either: Majumdar--Papapetrou, up to a duality rotation, in which case all logarithmic angle defects vanish, or every finite axis rod logarithmic angle defect is strictly negative and hence every interaction force is strictly attractive. The proof extends the singular harmonic map method used for vacuum Kerr uniqueness in [18].

gr-qc↗
arXiv2026

Constraining Modified Mass-to-Horizon Cosmology Through Primordial Inflationary Observables

We investigate slow-roll inflation in a modified cosmological framework inspired by a generalized mass-to-horizon relation (MHR), $M=\gamma {c^2 L^n}/{G}$, where $n$ is a real parameter and $\gamma$ a dimensional constant. Using Padmanabhan's emergence paradigm, we derive the modified Friedmann equations for a flat FRW universe and analyze the dynamics of a canonical scalar field (inflaton) under the slow-roll approximation. We study the resulting inflationary phenomenology for power-law and Starobinsky potentials. For power-law potentials, the MHR modification fails to reconcile these models with current CMB constraints on $r$ and $n_s$. In contrast, Starobinsky inflation exhibits significant sensitivity to deviations from $n=1$. A perturbative analysis ($n=1+\Delta$) yields corrections to inflationary observables. We observe that the scalar power-spectrum normalization, under a fixed-Starobinsky prescription, imposes the stringent constraint $0.960 \lesssim n \lesssim 1.040$ for $N=60$ efolds. This is considerably tighter than spectral-index bounds. Our results establish inflation, particularly Starobinsky-like models, as a sensitive probe of generalized horizon thermodynamics and departures from standard MHR scaling.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2026

Improving the Sensitivity of Gravitational Wave Detection with Weighted Conformal Prediction

In the last decade, kilometre-scale interferometric gravitational-wave detectors have observed hundreds of compact binary mergers, the majority of which are binary black holes. However, the data are noise-dominated, and multiple independent search algorithms (pipelines) are used to enhance sensitivity and improve robustness. Rather than the standard approach of selecting the most significant pipeline output, we combine the outputs from all pipelines using a conformal prediction-based framework to provide statistically rigorous confidence estimates for candidate events. While combining pipelines improves sensitivity and ranking robustness, it requires a principled statistical framework that remains valid as data properties evolve across observing runs. A key challenge is distribution shifts between simulated datasets used for training and calibration and the real, unlabelled, observations used for testing, which can invalidate coverage guarantees and bias confidence estimates. In this work, we address this challenge by incorporating likelihood-ratio reweighting into our conformal prediction framework to account for covariate shift. Using mock datasets containing simulated signals, we demonstrate that weighted conformal prediction restores well-calibrated coverage under covariate shift and increases the confidence of events near the detection threshold, recovering true signals that would otherwise be missed.

gr-qc↗