Related papers: Pulsar timing array projects
The phenomenal rotational stability of millisecond pulsars allows them to be used as precise celestial clocks. An array of these pulsars can be exploited to search for correlated perturbations in their pulse times of arrival due to…
Millisecond pulsars are intrinsically very stable clocks and precise measurement of their observed pulse periods can be used to study a wide variety of astrophysical phenomena. In particular, observations of a large sample of millisecond…
Pulsars are the most stable macroscopic clocks found in nature. Spinning with periods as short as a few milliseconds, their stability can supersede that of the best atomic clocks on Earth over timescales of a few years. Stable clocks are…
Pulsar timing array projects are carrying out high precision observations of millisecond pulsars with the aim of detecting ultra-low frequency (~ 10^{-9} to 10^{-8} Hz) gravitational waves. We show how unambiguous detections of such waves…
Pulsars are remarkably precise "celestial clocks" that can be used to explore many different aspects of physics and astrophysics. In this article I give a brief summary of pulsar properties and describe some of the applications of pulsar…
Three pulsar timing arrays are now producing high quality data sets. As reviewed in this paper, these data sets are been processed to 1) develop a pulsar-based time standard, 2) search for errors in the solar system planetary ephemeris and…
Analysis of high-precision timing observations of an array of approx. 20 millisecond pulsars (a so-called "timing array") may ultimately result in the detection of a stochastic gravitational-wave background. The feasibility of such a…
Pulsars are wonderful gravitational probes. Their tiny size and stellar mass give their rotation periods a stablility comparable to that of atomic frequency standards. This is especially true of the rapidly rotating "millisecond pulsars"…
Millisecond and binary pulsars are the most stable astronomical standards of frequency. They can be applied to solving a number of problems in astronomy and time-keeping metrology including the search for a stochastic gravitational wave…
Pulsars are potentially the most remarkable physical laboratories we will ever use. Although in many senses they are extremely clean systems there are a large number of instabilities and variabilities seen in the emission and rotation of…
The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array project aims to make a direct detection of a gravitational-wave background through timing of millisecond pulsars. In this article, the main requirements for that endeavour are described and recent and ongoing…
Pulsars are natural cosmic clocks. On long timescales they rival the precision of terrestrial atomic clocks. Using a technique called pulsar timing, the exact measurement of pulse arrival times allows a number of applications, ranging from…
Pulsar timing uses the highly stable pulsar spin period to investigate many astrophysical topics. In particular, pulsar timing arrays make use of a set of extremely well-timed pulsars and their time correlations as a challenging detector of…
The number of known millisecond pulsars has dramatically increased in the last few years. Regular observations of these pulsars may allow gravitational waves with frequencies ~10^-9 Hz to be detected. A ``pulsar timing array'' is therefore…
Terrestrial timescales show instabilities due to the physical limitations of the atomic clocks. Stricter environmental isolation and increased numbers of improved cesium clocks and cavity-tuned hydrogen masers have resulted in time scales…
The first direct detection of gravitational waves may be made through observations of pulsars. The principal aim of pulsar timing array projects being carried out worldwide is to detect ultra-low frequency gravitational waves (f ~ 10^-9 to…
A pulsar timing array (PTA) refers to a program of regular, high-precision timing observations of a widely distributed array of millisecond pulsars. Here we review the status of the three primary PTA projects and the joint International…
The aims of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) project are to 1) make a direct detection of gravitational waves, 2) improve the solar system planetary ephemeris and 3) develop a pulsar-based time scale. In this article we describe the…
The International Pulsar Timing Array project combines observations of pulsars from both Northern and Southern hemisphere observatories with the main aim of detecting ultra-low frequency (~10^-9 to 10^-8 Hz) gravitational waves. Here we…
Even though Pulsar Timing Arrays already have the potential to detect the gravitational wave background by finding a quadrupole correlation in the timing residuals, this goal has not yet been achieved. Motivated by some theoretical…