Milli-Hertz Gravitational Wave Background Produced by Quasi-Periodic Eruptions

Abstract

Extreme-mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) are important targets for future space-borne gravitational-wave (GW) detectors, such as the Laser Interferometer Sapce Antenna (LISA). Recent works suggest that EMRI may reside in a population of newly discovered X-ray transients called "quasi-periodic eruptions" (QPEs). Here we follow this scenario and investigate the detectability of the five recently discovered QPEs by LISA. We consider two specific models in which the QPEs are made of either stellar-mass objects moving on circular orbits around massive black holes (MBHs) or white dwarfs (WDs) on eccentric orbits around MBHs. We find that in either case each QPE is too weak to be resolvable by LISA. However, if QPEs are made of eccentric WD-MBH binaries, they radiate GWs in a wide range of frequencies. The broad spectra overlap to form a background which, between $0.003-0.02$ Hz, exceeds the background known to exist due to other types of sources. Presence of this GW background in the LISA band could impact the future search for the seed black holes at high redshift as well as the stellar-mass binary black holes in the local universe.

7 pages, 3 figures, comments welcome!

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• Quasi--Periodic Eruptions from Galaxy Nuclei
• Alive and kicking: A new QPE phase in GSN 069 revealing a quiescent luminosity threshold for QPEs
• Alive but Barely Kicking: News from 3+ years of Swift and XMM-Newton X-ray Monitoring of Quasi-Periodic Eruptions from eRO-QPE1
• Angular Momentum Transfer in QPEs from Galaxy Nuclei
• QPE or QPO? -- Quasiperiodic Activity in Low-Mass Galaxy Nuclei
• Why are Quasiperiodic Eruptions only Found in Low-Mass Galaxies?
• The Secular Periodic Evolution of X-ray Quasi-periodic Eruptions Driven by Star-disc Collisions
• Can GRB 250702B be explained as the tidal disruption of a white dwarf by an intermediate mass black hole? Yes
• Impact of mass transfer on the orbital evolution of a white dwarf close to an intermediate-mass black hole
• Hubble constant measurement from QPEs as electromagnetic counterparts to extreme mass ratio inspirals
• Gravitational Wave Signatures of Quasi-Periodic Eruptions: LISA Detection Prospects for RX J1301.9+2747
• Extreme Mass Ratio Inspirals in Light of Quasi-periodic Eruptions: Milli-Hertz Gravitational Wave Background