- Accepted Paper
Testing double white dwarf orientation alignment in the large magellanic cloud with LISA
Phys. Rev. D - Accepted 29 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/9l7d-2h4b
Phys. Rev. D - Accepted 29 October, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/9l7d-2h4b
We study a LISA test of binary-orientation asymmetry using resolved double white dwarf binaries in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). We focus on a dipole-like asymmetry with respect to the mean angular-momentum vector of the LMC disk. After accounting for the fourfold polarization-angle degeneracy of circular binaries, the observable low-order moments are simple projections of the intrinsic orientation moments. The LMC viewing geometry only mildly suppresses the dipole projection, in contrast to the nearly side-on Galactic-bulge case. For the fiducial effective sample sizes considered here, the formal shot-noise-limited LMC dipole resolution is smaller than the corresponding Galactic-bulge scaling. We further examine how inclination-measurement uncertainties and inclination-dependent source selection affect the dipole sensitivity. This geometry-driven comparison is not a full catalog forecast, but it identifies the LMC as a favorable target for testing pronounced signed dipole-like orientation asymmetries.
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