Related papers: Pulsar Timing Arrays require hierarchical models
Gravitational-wave data from advanced-era interferometric detectors consists of background Gaussian noise, frequent transient artefacts, and rare astrophysical signals. Multiple search algorithms exist to detect the signals from compact…
We perform a Bayesian search in the latest Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) datasets for a stochastic gravitational wave (GW) background sourced by curvature perturbations at scales $10^5~\text{Mpc}^{-1}\lesssim k\lesssim 10^8~\text{Mpc}^{-1}$.…
Pulsar Timing Arrays have yet to convincingly observe gravitational waves. Some time ago it was pointed out by one of the authors that a dramatic enhancement of the signal would take place for particular values of the angle subtended by the…
Pulsars are unique astrophysical laboratories because of their clock-like timing precision, providing new ways to test general relativity and detect gravitational waves. One impediment to high-precision pulsar timing experiments is timing…
In the past five years, approximately one third of the 65 pulsars discovered by radio observations of Fermi unassociated sources are black widow pulsars (BWPs). BWPs are binary millisecond pulsars with companion masses ranging from 0.01-0.1…
This is an introduction to Bayesian inference with a focus on hierarchical models and hyper-parameters. We write primarily for an audience of Bayesian novices, but we hope to provide useful insights for seasoned veterans as well. Examples…
Observing non-Gaussianity in the timing residuals of Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) has recently attracted attention as a potential discriminator between astrophysical and cosmological origins of the observed Gravitational Wave (GW) signal. In…
In this paper we attempt to investigate the nature of the first gravitational wave (GW) signal to be detected by pulsar timing arrays (PTAs): will it be an individual, resolved supermassive black hole binary (SBHB), or a stochastic…
We present new limits on an isotropic stochastic gravitational-wave background (GWB) using a six pulsar dataset spanning 18 yr of observations from the 2015 European Pulsar Timing Array data release. Performing a Bayesian analysis, we fit…
Quantum computational devices, currently under development, have the potential to accelerate data analysis techniques beyond the ability of any classical algorithm. We propose the application of a quantum algorithm for the detection of…
Gravitational wave detectors will need optimal signal-processing algorithms to extract weak signals from the detector noise. Most algorithms designed to date are based on the unrealistic assumption that the detector noise may be modeled as…
Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are designed to detect gravitational waves (GWs) at nHz frequencies. The expected dominant signal is given by the superposition of all waves emitted by the cosmological population of supermassive black hole…
An isotropic stochastic background of nanohertz gravitational waves creates excess residual power in pulsar-timing-array datasets, with characteristic inter-pulsar correlations described by the Hellings-Downs function. These correlations…
This paper introduces a new sparse spatio-temporal structured Gaussian process regression framework for online and offline Bayesian inference. This is the first framework that gives a time-evolving representation of the interdependencies…
A cosmological first-order phase transition is expected to produce a stochastic gravitational wave background. If the phase transition temperature is on the MeV scale, the power spectrum of the induced stochastic gravitational waves peaks…
We extend the recently introduced Bayesian framework `Generative Pulsar Timing Analysis' to incorporate both pulse jitter (high frequency variation in the arrival time of the pulse) and epoch to epoch stochasticity in the shape of the pulse…
An empirical Bayes approach to the estimation of possibly sparse sequences observed in Gaussian white noise is set out and investigated. The prior considered is a mixture of an atom of probability at zero and a heavy-tailed density \gamma,…
The analysis of gravitational wave interferometer data requires estimates for the noise covariance matrix. For stationary noise, this amounts to estimating the power spectrum. Classical methods such as Welch averaging are used in many…
Pulsar-timing collaborations have recently reported evidence for the detection of an isotropic stochastic gravitational-wave background consistent with one sourced by a population of inspiralling supermassive black hole binaries. However, a…
Several pulsar timing array (PTA) experiments such as NANOGrav and PPTA recently reported evidence of a gravitational wave (GW) background at nano-Hz frequency band. This signal can originate from scalar-induced gravitational waves (SIGW)…