Mock Catalogs of Strongly Lensed Gravitational Waves via a Halo Model Approach with Space-borne Detectors
Abstract
Future space-borne gravitational-wave (GW) detectors, such as LISA and DECIGO, are expected to detect a large number of GW events, a fraction of which may be strongly lensed by intervening galaxies or galaxy clusters. In this work, we develop a comprehensive framework to simulate strongly lensed GWs in the context of space-borne detectors. Based on realistic astrophysical models for both the source population and the lens distribution, we construct mock catalogs of lensed GW events, referred to as \textbf{GW-LMC-Space}. Our results show that, for a four-year LISA observation, the expected number of lensed events ranges from $0$ to $131$, depending on the adopted formation model of massive black hole binaries (MBHBs). The corresponding lensing probability for MBHBs can reach up to ∼ 0.3%. For DECIGO, we find that the number of lensed events in a one-year observation is expected to lie in the range of $0−−44$, with a lensing probability of ∼ 0.15% for stellar-mass binary black holes (BBHs), binary neutron stars (BNSs), and neutron star--black hole binaries (NSBHs). We further show that the overlap of lensed signals is a common feature in space-borne detectors, which can significantly affect both the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) estimation and event identification. These results highlight the importance of accounting for signal overlap in the analysis of strongly lensed GW events in future space-borne GW observations.
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BibTeX
@misc{sun2026mock,
title = {{Mock Catalogs of Strongly Lensed Gravitational Waves via a Halo Model Approach with Space-borne Detectors}},
author = {Mingqi Sun and Kai Liao and Youkai Li and Tonghua Liu and Hengyu Wu and Shaoqi Hou and Tao Yang and Xilong Fan and Marek Biesiada},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2606.08899},
eprint = {2606.08899},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.08899},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Mock Catalogs of Strongly Lensed Gravitational Waves via a Halo Model Approach with Space-borne Detectors
AU - Mingqi Sun
AU - Kai Liao
AU - Youkai Li
AU - Tonghua Liu
AU - Hengyu Wu
AU - Shaoqi Hou
AU - Tao Yang
AU - Xilong Fan
AU - Marek Biesiada
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/15
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2606.08899
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.08899
AB - Future space-borne gravitational-wave (GW) detectors, such as LISA and DECIGO, are expected to detect a large number of GW events, a fraction of which may be strongly lensed by intervening galaxies or galaxy clusters. In this work, we develop a comprehensive framework to simulate strongly lensed GWs in the context of space-borne detectors. Based on realistic astrophysical models for both the source population and the lens distribution, we construct mock catalogs of lensed GW events, referred to as \textbf{GW-LMC-Space}. Our results show that, for a four-year LISA observation, the expected number of lensed events ranges from $0$ to $131$, depending on the adopted formation model of massive black hole binaries (MBHBs). The corresponding lensing probability for MBHBs can reach up to ∼ 0.3%. For DECIGO, we find that the number of lensed events in a one-year observation is expected to lie in the range of $0−−44$, with a lensing probability of ∼ 0.15% for stellar-mass binary black holes (BBHs), binary neutron stars (BNSs), and neutron star--black hole binaries (NSBHs). We further show that the overlap of lensed signals is a common feature in space-borne detectors, which can significantly affect both the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) estimation and event identification. These results highlight the importance of accounting for signal overlap in the analysis of strongly lensed GW events in future space-borne GW observations.
ER -