Related papers: Pulsars as gravitational wave detectors

Gravitational waves with frequencies below 1~nHz are notoriously difficult to detect. With periods exceeding current experimental lifetimes, they induce slow drifts in observables rather than periodic correlations. Observables with…

Pulsars can be used to search for stochastic backgrounds of gravitational waves of cosmological origin within the very low frequency band (VLF), $10^{-7}$ to $10^{-9}$ Hz. We propose to construct a special 50 m radio telescope. Regular…

Gravitational waves provide a new probe of the Universe which can reveal a number of cosmological and astrophysical phenomena that cannot be observed by electromagnetic waves. Different frequencies of gravitational waves are detected by…

Efforts to detect gravitational waves by timing an array of pulsars have focused traditionally on stationary gravitational waves: e.g., stochastic or periodic signals. Gravitational wave bursts --- signals whose duration is much shorter…

Pulsars are amongst the most stable rotators known in the Universe. Over many years some millisecond pulsars rival the stability of atomic clocks. Comparing observations of many such stable pulsars may allow the first direct detection of…

Detection and study of gravitational waves from astrophysical sources is a major goal of current astrophysics. Ground-based laser-interferometer systems such as LIGO and VIRGO are sensitive to gravitational waves with frequencies of order…

In the last decade, the use of an ensemble of radio pulsars to constrain the characteristic strain caused by a stochastic gravitational wave background has advanced the cause of detection of very low frequency gravitational waves…

Pulsar timing is a promising technique for detecting low frequency sources of gravitational waves. Historically the focus has been on the detection of diffuse stochastic backgrounds, such as those formed from the superposition of weak…

Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) experiments exploit the clock-like behaviour of an array of millisecond pulsars, with the goal of detecting low-frequency gravitational waves. PTA experiments have been in operation over the last decade, led by…

Pulsar timing experiments are reaching sufficient sensitivity to detect a postulated stochastic gravitational wave background generated by merging supermassive black hole systems in the cores of galaxies. We describe the techniques behind…

Direct detection of gravitational waves by pulsar timing arrays will become feasible over the next few years. In the low frequency regime ($10^{-7}$ Hz -- $10^{-9}$ Hz), we expect that a superposition of gravitational waves from many…

Pulsar timing array projects measure the pulse arrival times of millisecond pulsars for the primary purpose of detecting nanohertz-frequency gravitational waves. The measurements include contributions from a number of astrophysical and…

Pulsar timing now has a rich history in placing limits on the stochastic background of gravitational waves, and we plan soon to reach the sensitivity where we can detect, not just place limits on, the stochastic background. However, the…

A gravitational wave passing through a pulsar will lead to a variation in the moment of inertia of the pulsar affecting its rotation. This will affect the extremely accurately measured spin rate of the pulsar as well as its pulse profile…

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…

(Abridged) This thesis presents long-term timing results on 20 millisecond pulsars (MSPs). It has been predicted that such timing may detect gravitational waves (GWs) - a major (but untested) prediction of general relativity. Our results…

The sensitivity of pulsar timing arrays to gravitational waves is, at some level, limited by timing noise. Red timing noise - the stochastic wandering of pulse arrival times with a red spectrum - is prevalent in slow-spinning pulsars and…

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…

Precision pulsar timing at the level of tens to hundreds of nanoseconds allows detection of nanohertz gravitational waves (GWs) from supermassive binary black holes (SMBBHs) at the cores of merging galaxies and, potentially, from exotic…

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…