Estimating galactic foreground with the population of resolved galactic binaries

Yang Jiang; Qing-Guo Huang

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arXiv · 2604.18992

Estimating galactic foreground with the population of resolved galactic binaries

Yang Jiang·Qing-Guo Huang

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Abstract

The stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) in the millihertz band constitutes a primary science target for future space-based interferometers. The detection of such a signal, however, poses substantial data-processing challenges, not least due to the overwhelming contribution from numerous compact binaries in our Galaxy. Only a fraction of these binaries are sufficiently bright to be resolved as individual sources. The superposition of gravitational waves from the inspiral phases of the unresolved majority gives rise to a confusion foreground that must be accurately estimated. In this work, we model this foreground as an anisotropic SGWB and derive the variation of detector response intensity by analyzing the spatial distribution of binary systems. We further examine the distribution of resolved systems to assess whether they are representative of the total population. Finally, we perform parameter estimation to an injected stochastic background using the modeled foreground within the Taiji Data Challenge II. Our results demonstrate that a foreground description based on the population properties of resolved Galactic binaries can yield preliminarily viable estimates.

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Yang Jiang, Qing-Guo Huang. 2026-09-12. Estimating galactic foreground with the population of resolved galactic binaries. https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.18992

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