Spectral separation of the stochastic gravitational-wave background for LISA in the context of a modulated Galactic foreground

TL;DR

This paper models the Galactic white dwarf binary foreground for LISA, develops a data analysis strategy to separate it from the stochastic gravitational-wave background, and estimates LISA's sensitivity to cosmological signals.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed simulation of the Galactic foreground and a method to distinguish it from the cosmological SGWB in LISA data.

Findings

LISA can detect a cosmological SGWB with energy density around 8 x 10^{-13}.

The Galactic foreground can be effectively modeled and separated from the background.

The analysis provides limits on the cosmological SGWB detection capabilities.

Abstract

Within its observational band the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, LISA, will simultaneously observe orbital modulated waveforms from Galactic white dwarf binaries, a binary black hole produced gravitational-wave background, and potentially a cosmologically created stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB). The overwhelming majority of stars end their lives as white dwarfs, making them very numerous in the Milky Way. We simulate Galactic white dwarf binary gravitational-wave emission based on distributions from various mock catalogs and determine a complex waveform from the Galactic foreground with $3.5 \times 10^{7}$ binaries. We describe the effects from the Galactic binary distribution population across mass, position within the Galaxy, core type, and orbital frequency distribution. We generate the modulated Galactic white dwarf signal detected by \textit{LISA} due to its orbital motion, and present a data analysis strategy to address it. The Fisher Information and Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods give an estimation of the \textit{LISA} noise and the parameters for the different signal classes. We estimate the detectable limits for the future LISA observation of the SGWB in the spectral domain with the 3 \textit{LISA} channels $A$, $E$, and $T$. We simultaneously estimate the Galactic foreground, the astrophysical and cosmological backgrounds. Assuming the expected astrophysical background and a Galactic foreground, a cosmological background energy density of around $\Omega_{GW,Cosmo} \approx 8 \times 10^{-13}$ could be detected by LISA. LISA will either detect a cosmologically produced SGWB, or set a limit that will have important consequences.