Gravitational-wave radiation from double compact objects with eLISA in the Galaxy

Abstract

The phase of in-spiral of double compact objects (DCOs: NS+WD, NS+NS, BH+NS, and BH+BH binaries) in the disk field population of the Galaxy provides a potential source in the frequency range from $10^{-4}$ to 0.1 Hz, which can be detected by the European New Gravitational Observatory (NGO: eLISA is derived from the previous LISA proposal) project. In this frequency range, much stronger gravitational wave (GW) radiation can be obtained from DCO sources because they possess more mass than other compact binaries (e.g., close double white dwarfs). In this study, we aim to calculate the gravitational wave signals from the resolvable DCO sources in the Galaxy using a binary population synthesis approach, and to carry out physical properties of these binaries using Monte Carlo simulations. Combining the sensitivity curve of the eLISA detector and a confusion-limited noise floor of close double white dwarfs, we find that only a handful of DCO sources can be detected by the eLISA detector. The detectable number of DCO sources reaches 160, in the context of low-frequency eLISA observations we find that the number of NS+WD, NS+NS, BH+NS, and BH+BH are 132, 16, 3, and 6, respectively.