Belgian-Dutch Gravitational Wave Meeting

Session

Parallel Sessions: Theory & Data Analysis

8 Oct 2026, 16:10

Aula Magna

21. A track search for extreme mass-ratio inspirals in LISA data with template banks

Bert Depoorter (KU Leuven - Royal Observatory of Belgium)

08/10/2026, 16:10

Extreme mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs), the inspiral of a stellar-mass compact object into a supermassive black hole, are one of the primary targets for LISA. They are long-duration, multi-harmonic signals that capture the complicated two-body dynamics of the system, which is exactly what makes them such precise probes of the source parameters. Detecting them in realistic LISA data is a...

18. Disentangling the Galactic binary zoo with LISA

Valeriya Korol (SRON Space Research Organisation Netherlands)

08/10/2026, 16:30

The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will open the millihertz gravitational-wave window and provide a new way to survey the fossil stellar population of our Galaxy through compact binaries composed of white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes. This offers enormous potential for population studies, Galactic astrophysics, and multi-messenger astronomy with LISA. However, once a...

38. Spin-up of white dwarfs through non-adiabatic dynamical tides and GW-driven resonance locking

Vincent Ernst

08/10/2026, 16:50

Short-period white dwarf (WD) binaries are prime targets for LISA, where both gravitational-wave (GW) emission and dynamical tides drive the spin-orbital evolution. Previous treatments of resonance locking — in which the tidal torque and GW-driven decay evolve in concert to hold the forcing frequency constant — rely on a quasi-adiabatic description in which the tidal torque is dissipative by...

6. On the evidence of lensing in GW231123

Mick Wright (Utrecht University)

08/10/2026, 17:10

Just like light, gravitational waves may be gravitationally lensed by massive objects along their travel path, however, this has not been observed so far. GW231123 is the most massive binary black-hole merger observed to-date, and standard analyses infer uncommon source properties that are unusually sensitive to the waveform model used. Here we investigate whether gravitational lensing can...

2. On the interplay between waveform systematics and lensing signatures in gravitational-wave signals

Disha Hegde (UCLouvain)

08/10/2026, 17:30

The exceptional gravitational-wave event GW231123 exhibited unusually high total mass and near-extremal spins, while revealing strong waveform-dependent variations in its inferred source properties. Several follow-up studies favored a lensed interpretation, with reduced waveform systematics,raising whether apparent lensing evidence could arise from waveform modeling systematics. Using...

19. GPU-accelerated Bayesian inference for diffracted gravitational wave signals

Jef Heynen (UC Louvain)

08/10/2026, 17:50

As the rate of gravitational wave detections continues to grow, the probability of observing a gravitationally lensed gravitational wave also increases. When the Schwarzschild radius of the lens is comparable in size to the gravitational wave wavelength, wave-optics effects induce a frequency-dependent modulation on the signal. CPU-based parameter estimation analyses for wave-optics lensing...

23. Massive and Intermediate Mass Black Holes as Revealed by LISA: How Gravitational Wave Astronomy Will be a Game Changer

Kelly Holley-Bockelmann (SRON)

Astronomers now know that massive black holes are in nearly every galaxy.
Though these black holes are an observational certainty, nearly every aspect of their evolution -- from their birth, to their fuel source, to their basic dynamics -- is a matter of lively debate. Fortunately, LISA, a space-based gravitational wave observatory set to launch in 2035, will revolutionize this field by...