English

Bayesian Analysis of Gravitational Wave Microlensing Effects from Galactic Double White Dwarfs

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2026-04-16 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

Gravitational waves (GWs) from the galactic double white dwarf (DWD) systems are one of the primary targets for upcoming space-based detectors. Due to their vast abundance and widespread distribution throughout the Galactic disk and bulge, these systems may provide a high-statistical population for probing GW microlensing effects induced by Galactic compact objects. To evaluate the detectability of such effects, in this work we simulate the four-year observation of DWD systems by Taiji, in the form of a second-generation Time Delay Interferometry (TDI) data stream. Within a Bayesian inference framework, we estimate parameters for lensed GWs from DWD systems for different values of the lens parameters, including the lens mass ML[10,106]M_\mathrm{L}\in [10, 10^6]\,M_\odot, the effective velocity veff[50,500]v_\mathrm{eff}\in [50, 500]\,km/s and the initial separation L[RE,3RE]L\in [R_\mathrm{E}, 3R_\mathrm{E}], and obtain the uncertainties of the corresponding parameters. These results characterize the capability of future Taiji observations to probe such systems. We further employ the Bayesian model selection framework to distinguish between lensed and unlensed scenarios, and investigate the impacts of three key physical parameters of the lens system: MLM_\mathrm{L}, veffv_\mathrm{eff}, and LL on distinguishing lensing events. Our results show that when MLM_\mathrm{L} is below 10510^5\,M_\odot or L3REL\geq3R_\mathrm{E}, it is not possible to distinguish between lensed and unlensed models. For veffv_\mathrm{eff}, although the Bayes factor decreases as veffv_\mathrm{eff} decreases, the lensed and unlensed models can still be distinguished within our parameter range.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.13930,
  title  = {Bayesian Analysis of Gravitational Wave Microlensing Effects from Galactic Double White Dwarfs},
  author = {Yan Sun and Yong Yuan and Minghui Du and Wen-Fan Feng and Xilong Fan and Peng Xu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.13930},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

21 pages, 7 figures