Measuring Cosmological Redshift Using Gravitational Waves from Compact Binaries with Mass Transfer

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to measure cosmological redshift using gravitational waves from binary systems with mass transfer, specifically white dwarf binaries, by analyzing phase contributions in the waveforms.

Contribution

It introduces an analytic approach to account for mass transfer effects in gravitational wave phase analysis, enabling redshift measurement for white dwarf binaries.

Findings

Redshift can be measured to 10% accuracy at z=0.01 with SNR~30.

Mass transfer effects help break degeneracies in gravitational wave signals.

DECIGO can effectively measure redshift in compact binaries with mass transfer.

Abstract

The mass transfer process is prevalent during the inspiral phase of compact binary systems. Detection of gravitational waves from the inspiral phase of binaries with white dwarfs will allow us to measure the mass transfer rate. Mass transfer effects provide additional contributions to the phase of gravitational waves, which can break the degeneracy between binary masses and redshift. Based on the analytic mass transfer rate to the first order post-Newtonian evolution of orbital angular frequency, we use the Fisher matrix to forecast the ability of DECIGO to measure the redshift of compact binaries with mass transfer. We conclude that for compact binary systems containing white dwarfs, the redshift can be determined to an accuracy of $10\%$ for $z=0.01$ with a $SNR\thicksim 30$.