Characterizing Accreting Double White Dwarf Binaries with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna and Gaia
Larson, Shane L.; Breivik, Katelyn; Kremer, Kyle; Kalogera, Vassiliki; Bueno, Michael; Coughlin, Scott
United States, United Kingdom
Abstract
We demonstrate a method to fully characterize mass-transferring double white dwarf (DWD) systems with a helium-rich (He) white dwarf (WD) donor based on the mass-radius (M-R) relationship for He WDs. Using a simulated Galactic population of DWDs, we show that donor and accretor masses can be inferred for up to ∼60 systems observed by both Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) and Gaia. Half of these systems will have mass constraints {{Δ }} {M}{{D}} ≲ 0.2 {M}⊙ and {{Δ }} {M}{{A}} ≲ 2.3 {M}⊙ . We also show how the orbital frequency evolution due to astrophysical processes and gravitational radiation can be decoupled from the total orbital frequency evolution for up to ∼50 of these systems.