The NANOGrav 12.5-year Data Set: Search for Gravitational Wave Memory
Abstract
We present the results of a Bayesian search for gravitational wave (GW) memory in the NANOGrav 12.5-yr data set. We find no convincing evidence for any gravitational wave memory signals in this data set (Bayes factor = 2.8). As such, we go on to place upper limits on the strain amplitude of GW memory events as a function of sky location and event epoch. These upper limits are computed using a signal model that assumes the existence of a common, spatially uncorrelated red noise in addition to a GW memory signal. The median strain upper limit as a function of sky position is approximately . We also find that there are some differences in the upper limits as a function of sky position centered around PSR J06130200. This suggests that this pulsar has some excess noise which can be confounded with GW memory. Finally, the upper limits as a function of burst epoch continue to improve at later epochs. This improvement is attributable to the continued growth of the pulsar timing array.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2307.13797,
title = {The NANOGrav 12.5-year Data Set: Search for Gravitational Wave Memory},
author = {Gabriella Agazie and Zaven Arzoumanian and Paul T. Baker and Bence Bécsy and Laura Blecha and Harsha Blumer and Adam Brazier and Paul R. Brook and Sarah Burke-Spolaor and Rand Burnette and Robin Case and J. Andrew Casey-Clyde and Maria Charisi and Shami Chatterjee and Tyler Cohen and James M. Cordes and Neil J. Cornish and Fronefield Crawford and H. Thankful Cromartie and Megan E. DeCesar and Dallas DeGan and Paul B. Demorest and Timothy Dolch and Brendan Drachler and Justin A. Ellis and Robert D. Ferdman and Elizabeth C. Ferrara and William Fiore and Emmanuel Fonseca and Gabriel E. Freedman and Nate Garver-Daniels and Peter A. Gentile and Joseph Glaser and Deborah C. Good and Kayhan Gültekin and Jeffrey S. Hazboun and Ross J. Jennings and Aaron D. Johnson and Megan L. Jones and Andrew R. Kaiser and David L. Kaplan and Luke Zoltan Kelley and Joey S. Key and Nima Laal and Michael T. Lam and William G. Lamb and T. Joseph W. Lazio and Natalia Lewandowska and Tingting Liu and Duncan R. Lorimer and Jing Luo and Ryan S. Lynch and Chung-Pei Ma and Dustin R. Madison and Alexander McEwen and James W. McKee and Maura A. McLaughlin and Patrick M. Meyers and Chiara M. F. Mingarelli and Andrea Mitridate and Cherry Ng and David J. Nice and Stella Koch Ocker and Ken D. Olum and Timothy T. Pennucci and Nihan S. Pol and Scott M. Ransom and Paul S. Ray and Joseph D. Romano and Shashwat C. Sardesai and Kai Schmitz and Xavier Siemens and Joseph Simon and Magdalena S. Siwek and Sophia V. Sosa Fiscella and Renée Spiewak and Ingrid H. Stairs and Daniel R. Stinebring and Kevin Stovall and Jerry P. Sun and Joseph K. Swiggum and Jacob Taylor and Stephen R. Taylor and Jacob E. Turner and Caner Unal and Michele Vallisneri and Sarah J. Vigeland and Haley M. Wahl and Caitlin A. Witt and Olivia Young},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2307.13797},
year = {2023}
}
Comments
29 pages, 5 figures