Oral Presentation Astronomical Society of Australia Annual Scientific Meeting including HWWS 2013

Precision ephemerides for gravitational-wave searches : Sco X-1 & Cyg X-2 (#93)

Sammanani S Premachandra 1 , Duncan K Galloway 1 2 , Danny Steeghs 3 , Tom Marsh 3 , Jorge Casares 4 , Remon Cornelisse 4
  1. School of Physics, Monash University, Clayton, Vic 3800, Australia
  2. School of Mathematical Sciences, Monash University, Clayton, Vic 3800, Australia
  3. University of Warwick, Coventry, United Kingdom
  4. Instituto de Astrofisica, La Laguna, Tenerife

Abstract :  Accreting neutron stars in low-mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) are candidate persistent gravitational wave (GW) sources, which may be detectable with next generation interferometers such as Advanced LIGO/VIRGO within this decade. However, the kind of searches possible will likely be limited principally by the uncertainty in the binary system parameters. I will present the revised binary system parameters for Sco X-1 and Cyg X-2 based on the 13-year and 45-year baseline, respectively. I will also present the estimates of the likely precision of the parameters that can be achieved throughout Advanced LIGO/VIRGO period and quantify the improvement in search sensitivity via the number of templates (models).