Impact of magnetism on gravitational waves emitted by compact galactic binaries in quasi-circular orbits

TL;DR

This paper investigates how magnetism in white dwarfs and neutron stars within galactic binaries affects the gravitational wave signals detected by LISA, highlighting potential biases in data analysis.

Contribution

It introduces the first analysis of magnetic effects on gravitational waves from galactic binaries in quasi-circular orbits, challenging the non-magnetic assumption.

Findings

Magnetism can significantly alter gravitational wave signals.

Ignoring magnetism may bias source parameter estimation.

Magnetic effects are relevant for accurate LISA data interpretation.

Abstract

The LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission will observe in the low frequency band from 0.1 mHz to 1 Hz. In this regime, we expect the galactic binaries to be the dominant (by number) sources of gravitational waves signal. Considering that galactic binaries are composed of the most magnetized astrophysical objects in the universe (i.e., the white dwarfs and the neutron stars), LISA is expected to bring new informations about the origin and the nature of magnetism inside degenerated stars. Currently, the data processing assumes that the galactic binary systems are non-magnetic and in circular orbits which can potentially biased the determination of the parameters of the sources and also the calibration of the detector. In this work, we investigate the impact of magnetism on gravitational waves emitted by compact galactic binaries assuming quasi-circular orbits.