Figure 30: Dependence of the dimensionless strain amplitude for a WD + WD detached system
with initial masses of the components of (red line), a WD + WD system with
(blue line) and a NS + WD system with (green line). All
systems have an initial separation of components and are assumed to be at a distance of
1 Kpc (i.e., the actual strength of the signal has to be scaled with factor , with in Kpc).
For the DD system, the line shows an evolution into contact, while for the other two systems the
upper branches show pre-contact evolution and lower branches – a post-contact evolution with mass
exchange. The total time-span of evolution covered by the tracks is 13.5 Gyr. Red dots mark the
positions of systems with components’ mass ratio , below which the conventional picture
of evolution with a mass exchange may be not valid. The red dashed line marks the position of the
confusion limit as determined in [519].