Gravitational Wave Sources as Timing References for LISA Data

Abstract

In the mHz gravitational-wave band, galactic ultra-compact binaries (UCBs) are continuous sources emitting at near-constant frequency. The signals from many of these galactic binaries will be sufficiently strong to be detectable by the \emph{Laser Interferometer Space Antenna} (LISA) after $\sim \mathcal{O}(1\text{week})$ of observing. In addition to their astrophysical value, these UCBs can be used to monitor the data quality of the observatory. This paper demonstrates the capabilities of galactic UCBs to be used as calibration sources for LISA by demanding signal coherence between adjacent week-long data segments separated by a gap in time of \emph{a priori} unknown duration. A parameter for the gap duration is added to the UCB waveform model and used in a Markov-chain Monte Carlo algorithm simultaneously fitting for the astrophysical source parameters. Results from measurements of several UCBs are combined to produce a joint posterior on the gap duration. The measurement accuracy's dependence on how much is known about the UCBs through prior observing, and seasonal variations due to the LISA orbital motion, is quantified. The duration of data gaps in a two-week segment of data can be constrained to within \stmo\ using {$\mathcal{O}(10)$} UCBs after one month of observing. The timing accuracy from UCBs improves to \styr\ after 1 year of mission operations. These results are robust to within a factor of $\sim 2$ when taking into account seasonal variations.

7 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PRD

References in corpus (7)

• Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
• Robust parameter estimation for compact binaries with ground-based gravitational-wave observations using the LALInference software library
• Prospects for detection of detached double white dwarf binaries with Gaia, LSST and LISA
• Galactic binary science with the new LISA design
• Tests of Bayesian Model Selection Techniques for Gravitational Wave Astronomy
• The LISA verification binaries
• Constraining parameters of white-dwarf binaries using gravitational-wave and electromagnetic observations

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Prototype Global Analysis of LISA Data with Multiple Source Types
• Global Analysis of the Gravitational Wave Signal from Galactic Binaries
• The Lunar Gravitational-wave Antenna: Mission Studies and Science Case
• The LISA Data Challenge Radler Analysis and Time-dependent Ultra-compact Binary Catalogues
• A novel stacked hybrid autoencoder for imputing LISA data gaps
• LISA Galactic Binaries in the Roman Galactic Bulge Time-Domain Survey
• LISA Gravitational Wave Sources in A Time-Varying Galactic Stochastic Background