The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is a space-based observatory currently being developed by LISA, with a scheduled launch date of 2035. It will observe gravitational waves (GWs), similarly to LIGO and Virgo but in a different frequency range. Binary systems consisting of two compact stellar remnants (that is, white dwarfs, neutron stars or black holes), will be important sources for LISA. In this thesis, I used BPASS and SeBa, software models of the evolution of binary stars, to make predictions about the populations of GW-emitting binaries that LISA will be able to detect. I studied both the Milky Way itself and smaller stellar populations around it, including globular clusters and the Magellanic Clouds. My research showed that the amount of predicted LISA sources in the Milky Way varies significantly depending on the stellar evolution models used, from hundreds to tens of thousands. By comparing the models to the small sample of white dwarf binaries already known, I showed that the actual number is most likely to lie towards the upper end of this range. These predictions are particularly affected by how the interactions between stars in the binary are simulated.
Wouter van Zeist (1998) obtained his Bachelor’s degree at the University of Waikato in New Zealand in 2017. Subsequently, he obtained his Honours and Master’s degrees at the University of Auckland, also in New Zealand, in 2019 and 2020, respectively. He began his PhD research at the University of Auckland in 2021, but transferred his degree to Radboud University when he moved back to his home country the Netherlands in 2022.