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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…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2019-04-03 George Hobbs , Shi Dai

Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are used to search for long-wavelength gravitational waves (GWs) by monitoring a set of spin-stable millisecond pulsars. Most theoretical analyses assume that the relevant GW sources are much more distant from…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2018-01-03 Dustin R. Madison , David F. Chernoff , James M. Cordes

We present a detailed analysis of the International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA) Second Mock Data Challenge. We tested our analysis methods using the open datasets, and then analyzed the closed datasets. In both the open and the closed…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2020-01-01 P. T. Baker , P. R. Brook , W. C. Fiore , N. Garver-Daniels , A. R. Kaiser , M. T. Lam , B. J. Shapiro-Albert , C. A. Witt

For big data analysis, high computational cost for Bayesian methods often limits their applications in practice. In recent years, there have been many attempts to improve computational efficiency of Bayesian inference. Here we propose an…

Computation · Statistics 2017-04-19 Cheng Zhang , Babak Shahbaba , Hongkai Zhao

Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) algorithms which combine numerical approximation of Hamiltonian dynamics on finite intervals with stochastic refreshment and Metropolis correction are popular sampling schemes, but it is known that they may…

Computation · Statistics 2022-08-16 Peter A. Whalley , Daniel Paulin , Benedict Leimkuhler

Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) use high accuracy timing of a collection of low timing noise pulsars to search for gravitational waves in the microhertz to nanohertz frequency band. The sensitivity of such a PTA depends on (a) the direction of…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-03-17 Brian J. Burt , Andrea N. Lommen , Lee Samuel Finn

We have begun an exciting era for gravitational wave detection, as several world-leading experiments are breaching the threshold of anticipated signal strengths. Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are pan-Galactic gravitational wave detectors that…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2015-11-26 Sarah Burke-Spolaor

Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) can be used to search for very low frequency ($10^{-9}$--$10^{-7}$ Hz) gravitational waves (GWs). In this paper we present a general method for the detection and localization of single-source GWs using PTAs. We…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2015-03-27 Xing-Jiang Zhu , Linqing Wen , George Hobbs , Yilin Zhang , Yan Wang , Dustin R. Madison , Richard N. Manchester , Matthew Kerr , Pablo A. Rosado , Jingbo Wang

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…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2018-03-28 Caterina Tiburzi

The search for gravitational waves using Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) is a computationally expensive complex analysis that involves source-specific noise studies. As more pulsars are added to the arrays, this stage of PTA analysis will…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-11-28 Lorenzo Speri , Nataliya K. Porayko , Mikel Falxa , Siyuan Chen , Jonathan R. Gair , Alberto Sesana , Stephen R. Taylor

Observing and timing a group of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) with high rotational stability enables the direct detection of gravitational waves (GWs). The GW signals can be identified from the spatial correlations encoded in the…

Gravitational Waves (GWs) are tiny ripples in the fabric of space-time predicted by Einstein's General Relativity. Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are well poised to detect low frequency ($10^{-9}$ -- $10^{-7}$ Hz) GWs in the near future. There…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-04 J. A. Ellis , F. A. Jenet , M. A. McLaughlin

State-of-the-art searches for gravitational waves (GWs) in pulsar timing array (PTA) datasets model the signal as an isotropic, Gaussian and stationary process described by a power-law. In practice, none of these properties are expected to…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-03-25 Serena Valtolina , Golam Shaifullah , Anuradha Samajdar , Alberto Sesana

Detecting continuous nanohertz gravitational waves (GWs) generated by individual close binaries of supermassive black holes (CB-SMBHs) is one of the primary objectives of pulsar timing arrays (PTAs). The detection sensitivity is slated to…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2021-12-08 Yu-Yang Songsheng , Yi-Qian Qian , Yan-Rong Li , Pu Du , Jie-Wen Chen , Yan Wang , Soumya D. Mohanty , Jian-Min Wang

Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) have recently found strong evidence for low-frequency gravitational waves (GWs) in the nanohertz frequency regime. As GWs pass, they produce deviations in measured lengths and light-travel times. PTA experiments…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-05-05 Luke Zoltan Kelley

In the gravitational-wave analysis of pulsar-timing-array datasets, parameter estimation is usually performed using Markov Chain Monte Carlo methods to explore posterior probability densities. We introduce an alternative procedure that…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2024-05-16 Michele Vallisneri , Marco Crisostomi , Aaron D. Johnson , Patrick M. Meyers

The recent detection of nanohertz stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds (SGWBs) by pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) promises unique insights into astrophysical and cosmological origins. However, traditional Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC)…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2025-06-12 Junrong Lai , Changhong Li

Leveraging Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) optimization of the F-statistic, we introduce a method for the hierarchical follow-up of continuous gravitational wave candidates identified by wide-parameter space semi-coherent searches. We…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2018-06-06 Gregory Ashton , Reinhard Prix

The analysis of data from gravitational wave detectors can be divided into three phases: search, characterization, and evaluation. The evaluation of the detection - determining whether a candidate event is astrophysical in origin or some…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2009-11-06 Tyson B. Littenberg , Neil J. Cornish

Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) samples efficiently from high-dimensional posterior distributions with proposed parameter draws obtained by iterating on a discretized version of the Hamiltonian dynamics. The iterations make HMC…

Computation · Statistics 2019-05-03 Khue-Dung Dang , Matias Quiroz , Robert Kohn , Minh-Ngoc Tran , Mattias Villani