2004/02/29 by Chunglee Kim, V. Kalogera, Vassiliki Kalogera +3 · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysics #Binary pulsar #Coalescence (physics) #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Geophysics and Gravity Measurements #Gravitational wave #Gravitational wave background #Millisecond pulsar #Neutron star #Physics #Population #Pulsar #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Stars #White dwarf #astro-ph #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/424954
published as Astrophys.J. 616 (2004) 1109-1117 · 20 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables, Accepted for publication in ApJ
arxiv created 2004/08/10 · openalex publication_date 2004/12/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We consider the statistics of pulsar binaries with white dwarf companions (NS-WD). Using the statistical analysis method developed by Kim and coworkers, we calculate the Galactic coalescence rate of NS-WD binaries due to gravitational wave emission. We find that the most likely values for the total Galactic coalescence rate ( tot ) of NS-WD binaries lie in the range 0.2-10 Myr -1 , depending on different assumed pulsar population models. For our reference model, we obtain tot = 4.11 Myr -1 at a 68% statistical confidence level. These rate estimates are not corrected for pulsar beaming, and as such they are found to be about a factor of 20 smaller than the Galactic coalescence rate estimates for double neutron star systems. Based on our rate estimates, we calculate the gravitational wave background due to coalescing NS-WD binaries out to extragalactic distances within the frequency band of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna . We find the contribution from NS-WD binaries to the gravitational wave background to be negligible.