Charting the Galactic Underworld II: Strategies for Identifying BHs and NSs with LISA
Abstract
Stellar-mass black holes (BHs) and neutron stars (NSs) observed by space-based gravitational-wave detectors offer constraints on binary stellar evolution that are complementary to those from ground- based detectors. The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is expected to detect hundreds of double compact objects (DCOs) containing a BH or NS, but distinguishing these sources from the far more numerous double white dwarfs (WDWDs) may prove challenging. We use adaptive importance sampling with COSMIC to synthesise large populations of BHBH, BHNS, NSNS, BHWD, and NSWD binaries. We combine these binaries with a Milky Way star-formation history and integrate their Galactic orbits with cogsworth, repeating our simulations for a grid of variations in uncertain (binary) stellar physics. We find that LISA detections are largely insensitive to the changes in Galactic position resulting from natal kicks. We then assess how well chirp mass, eccentricity, distance from the Galactic plane, and orbital frequency distinguish BH- and NS-hosting DCOs from WDWDs, accounting for LISA measurement uncertainties. Using chirp mass alone distinguishes only 50-60% of BHBHs and BHNSs, and ~40% of NSNSs, but combining this with orbital frequency recovers 90-100% of BHBHs and BHNSs and around ~50% of NSNSs, with eccentricity further improving the recovery of NSNSs to around 60-70%. Distance from the Galactic plane adds little discriminating power, though it can recover a handful of NSWDs that are missed otherwise. These methods will help identify a significantly larger number of BHs and NSs in LISA data that would be missed by a chirp mass cut alone.
Related
- Identifying Galactic Binary Systems of Neutron Stars and Black Holes with LISA
- Massively parallel transdimensional sampling with data assimilation: an application to LISA galactic binaries
- Time-Frequency Analysis for LISA: Galactic Foreground Modulation
- Emulating the complex galactic-scale orbital dynamics of LISA massive black hole pairs with normalizing flows
- The Missing MeV Window for Identifying Galactic PeVatrons: the need for a dedicated MeV Observatory
BibTeX
@misc{wagg2026charting,
title = {{Charting the Galactic Underworld II: Strategies for Identifying BHs and NSs with LISA}},
author = {Tom Wagg and Frank E. Prince and Katelyn Breivik and Kira Baasch and Jorie McDermott and Michael Zevin},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.30262},
eprint = {2610.30262},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.30262},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Charting the Galactic Underworld II: Strategies for Identifying BHs and NSs with LISA
AU - Tom Wagg
AU - Frank E. Prince
AU - Katelyn Breivik
AU - Kira Baasch
AU - Jorie McDermott
AU - Michael Zevin
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/21
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.30262
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.30262
AB - Stellar-mass black holes (BHs) and neutron stars (NSs) observed by space-based gravitational-wave detectors offer constraints on binary stellar evolution that are complementary to those from ground- based detectors. The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is expected to detect hundreds of double compact objects (DCOs) containing a BH or NS, but distinguishing these sources from the far more numerous double white dwarfs (WDWDs) may prove challenging. We use adaptive importance sampling with COSMIC to synthesise large populations of BHBH, BHNS, NSNS, BHWD, and NSWD binaries. We combine these binaries with a Milky Way star-formation history and integrate their Galactic orbits with cogsworth, repeating our simulations for a grid of variations in uncertain (binary) stellar physics. We find that LISA detections are largely insensitive to the changes in Galactic position resulting from natal kicks. We then assess how well chirp mass, eccentricity, distance from the Galactic plane, and orbital frequency distinguish BH- and NS-hosting DCOs from WDWDs, accounting for LISA measurement uncertainties. Using chirp mass alone distinguishes only 50-60% of BHBHs and BHNSs, and ~40% of NSNSs, but combining this with orbital frequency recovers 90-100% of BHBHs and BHNSs and around ~50% of NSNSs, with eccentricity further improving the recovery of NSNSs to around 60-70%. Distance from the Galactic plane adds little discriminating power, though it can recover a handful of NSWDs that are missed otherwise. These methods will help identify a significantly larger number of BHs and NSs in LISA data that would be missed by a chirp mass cut alone.
ER -