M. Benacquista — Page 3

arXiv2001

Detecting Eccentric Globular Cluster Binaries with LISA

The energy carried in the gravitational wave signal from an eccentric binary is spread across several harmonics of the orbital frequency. The inclusion of the harmonics in the analysis of the gravitational wave signal increases the signal-to-noise ratio of the detected signal for binaries whose fundamental frequency is below the galactic confusion-limited noise cut-off. This can allow for an improved angular resolution for sources whose orbital period is greater than 2000 s. Globular cluster sources include possible binary black holes and neutron stars which may have high eccentricities. Cluster dynamics may also enhance the eccentricities of double white dwarf binaries and white dwarf-neutron star binaries over the galactic sources. Preliminary results of the expected signal-to-noise ratio for selected globular cluster binaries are presented.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2001

Detection of Gravitational Waves from Gravitationally Lensed Systems

It is accepted that quasars are powered by supermassive black holes (SMBH) with masses in the range 10^6 - 10^9 solar masses in their cores. Occasionally, compact stars can plunge into SMBH. In addition, there may be a number of such compact objects circling the central SMBH in any given quasar. Both of these processes are known to emit gravitational waves. LISA has the right sensitivity to detect these waves. We show that gravitational lenses amplify the amplitudes of these gravitational waves just as they amplify the observed light of quasars. Given the geometry of the lensing configuration, this amplification can be as large as a factor of 2 to 10, allowing the waves to be above the detection threshold of LISA. We also show that waves from lensed quasars arrive with time delays which are much larger than the coherence time of the gravitational waves, making interference effects negligible. Thus, a simple geometrical optics application leads to the lensing theory of gravitational waves. In this context, we analyze and show in this preliminary analysis that there is an enhancement of the amplitudes of gravitational radiation coming from observed lensed quasars.

astro-ph↗