Warren Brown, Harvard, CFA

Merging White Dwarfs Making Gravitational Waves

Extremely low mass white dwarfs are the unusual remnants of stars that lost extreme amounts of mass during their evolution. Our targeted survey has discovered dozens of these rare objects, which turn out to be compact binary systems that are merging due to the loss of energy and angular momentum via gravitational wave radiation. I will discuss how these white dwarf systems are among the strongest known gravitational wave sources and are the possible progenitors of future supernovae. I will highlight a recently discovered 12 min period detached eclipsing binary, a system that the proposed LISA gravitational wave mission would detect in the first week of operation.

Host:  Dong Lai