Breaking spin-inversion degeneracies with complete precessing waveforms

Determine whether complete precessing gravitational-wave waveforms, including observer-frame precession modulations, higher harmonics, separate polarizations, and the full LISA detector response, break the degeneracy between spin-inverting and physically evolving no-inversion binaries.

Background

Within the restricted model, spin inversions enter primarily through the accumulated carrier phase, the evolving chirp rate, and a leading inclination-amplitude factor. The reported high matches show that these effects can be reproduced by no-inversion systems after varying source parameters.

A complete waveform would add inertial-frame precession modulations, higher modes, separate polarization information, and the time-dependent LISA response. The paper does not perform that full recovery analysis, leaving unresolved whether these additional observables provide sufficient information to distinguish spin-inverting trajectories from ordinary-precession explanations.