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Astrophysics, Solar and Stellar Astrophysics, astro-ph.SR, Astrophysics, High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, astro-ph.HE,General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, gr-qc
Abstract:
Galactic compact binaries with orbital periods shorter than a few hours emit
detectable gravitational waves at low frequencies. Their gravitational wave
signals can be detected with the future Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
(LISA). Crucially, they may be useful in the early months of the mission
operation in helping to validate LISA's performance in comparison to pre-launch
expectations. We present an updated list of 48 candidate LISA binaries with
measured properties, for which we derive distances based on Gaia Data release 3
astrometry. Based on the known properties from electromagnetic observations, we
predict the LISA detectability after 1, 3, 6, and 48 months with
state-of-the-art Bayesian analysis methods. We distinguish between verification
and detectable binaries as being detectable after 3 and 48 months respectively.
We find 16 verification binaries and 21 detectable sources, which triples the
number of known LISA binaries over the last few years. These include detached
double white dwarfs, AM CVn binaries, one ultracompact X-ray binary and two hot
subdwarf binaries. We find that across this sample the gravitational wave
amplitude is expected to be measured to $\approx10\%$ on average, while the
inclination is expected to be determined with $\approx15^\circ$ precision. For
detectable binaries these average errors increase to $\approx50\%$ and to
$\approx40^\circ$ respectively.