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arXiv · 2606.01236

Improving the resolution of double white dwarf systems with spaceborne gravitational wave observatories using a robust astrophysical prior

Shao-Dong Zhao·Xue-Hao Zhang·Soumya D. Mohanty·Yu-Xiao Liu
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Abstract

Resolving the crowded population of double white dwarf (DWD) binaries in data from spaceborne gravitational wave (GW) observatories (e.g., LISA, Taiji) remains a major analysis challenge. Comparable performance on addressing this problem has been achieved with two main approaches: global fit, in which resolvable sources are estimated simultaneously from the data, and iterative, where sources are estimated one at a time and subtracted out from the data. While the latter is computationally efficient, methods developed under this approach have traditionally followed a frequentist framework that ignores astrophysical priors. This work incorporates a strong astrophysical prior, derived from the mass limits of detached white dwarfs and linking the GW signal frequency $f$ with its time derivative $\dot{f}$, into the iterative $\mathtt{GBSIEVER}$ pipeline. Applied to simulated LISA and LISA-Taiji network data, the method increases the number of confidently resolved sources by ${\approx}7.3\%$ (LISA-only) and ${\approx}14.6\%$ (network), respectively, and improves parameter estimation accuracy. The improvement persists across multiple realistic DWD population realizations, including in the low-frequency confusion-dominated regime, demonstrating the robustness and practical utility of astrophysically informed priors in iterative source extraction.

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Shao-Dong Zhao, Xue-Hao Zhang, Soumya D. Mohanty, Yu-Xiao Liu. 2026-05-31. Improving the resolution of double white dwarf systems with spaceborne gravitational wave observatories using a robust astrophysical prior. https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.01236

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