The influence of short term variations in AM CVn systems on LISA measurements

Understand

We study the effect of short term variations of the evolution of AM CVn systems on their gravitational wave emissions and in particular LISA observations.

• We model the systems according to their equilibrium mass-transfer evolution as driven by gravitational wave emission and tidal interaction, and determine their reaction to a sudden perturbation of the system.
• This is inspired by the suggestion to explain the orbital period evolution of the ultra-compact binary systems V407 Vul and RX-J0806+1527 by non-equilibrium mass transfer.
• The characteristics of the emitted gravitational wave signal are deduced from a Taylor expansion of a Newtonian quadrupolar emission model, and the changes in signal structure as visible to the LISA mission are determined.