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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…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-10 George Hobbs

Several pulsar-timing array (PTA) collaborations are finding tantalising hints for a stochastic gravitational wave background signal in the nano-Hertz regime. So far, though, no convincing evidence for the expected Hellings-Downs…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2022-04-20 Gianmassimo Tasinato

Bayesian inference, widely used in gravitational-wave parameter estimation, depends on the choice of priors, i.e., on our previously existing knowledge. However, to investigate neutron star mergers, priors are often chosen in an agnostic…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2025-12-01 Thibeau Wouters , Peter T. H. Pang , Tim Dietrich , Chris Van Den Broeck

Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are designed to detect nanohertz-frequency gravitational waves (GWs). Since GWs are anticipated from cosmic strings, PTAs offer a viable approach to testing their existence. We present the results of the first…

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 is a Galactic-scale detector of nanohertz gravitational waves (GWs). Its target signals contain two components: the `Earth term' and the `pulsar term' corresponding to GWs incident on the Earth and pulsar respectively.…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2016-07-06 Xingjiang Zhu , Linqing Wen , Jie Xiong , Yanjun Xu , Yan Wang , Soumya D. Mohanty , George Hobbs , Richard N. Manchester

Statistical anisotropy in the nanohertz-frequency gravitational-wave background (GWB) is expected to be detected by pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) in the near future. By developing a frequentist statistical framework that intrinsically…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2022-12-14 Nihan Pol , Stephen R. Taylor , Joseph D. Romano

The detection of the Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background (SGWB) is one of the most challenging tasks for both current and next-generation detectors. Successfully distinguishing the SGWB from instrumental noise and environmental effects…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2025-07-22 Ilaria Caporali , Angelo Ricciardone

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…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-15 Justin Ellis , Xavier Siemens , Rutger van Haasteren

By regularly monitoring the most stable millisecond pulsars over many years, pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are positioned to detect and study correlations in the timing behaviour of those pulsars. Gravitational waves (GWs) from supermassive…

Bayesian inference is used to extract unknown parameters from gravitational wave signals. Detector noise is typically modelled as stationary, although data from the LIGO and Virgo detectors is not stationary. We demonstrate that the…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2021-07-13 O Edy , A. Lundgren , L. K. Nuttall

We report multiple lines of evidence for a stochastic signal that is correlated among 67 pulsars from the 15-year pulsar-timing data set collected by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves. The correlations follow…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-06-29 Gabriella Agazie , Akash Anumarlapudi , Anne M. Archibald , Zaven Arzoumanian , Paul T. Baker , Bence Becsy , Laura Blecha , Adam Brazier , Paul R. Brook , Sarah Burke-Spolaor , Rand Burnette , Robin Case , Maria Charisi , Shami Chatterjee , Katerina Chatziioannou , Belinda D. Cheeseboro , Siyuan Chen , Tyler Cohen , James M. Cordes , Neil J. Cornish , Fronefield Crawford , H. Thankful Cromartie , Kathryn Crowter , Curt J. Cutler , Megan E. DeCesar , Dallas DeGan , Paul B. Demorest , Heling Deng , Timothy Dolch , Brendan Drachler , Justin A. Ellis , Elizabeth C. Ferrara , William Fiore , Emmanuel Fonseca , Gabriel E. Freedman , Nate Garver-Daniels , Peter A. Gentile , Kyle A. Gersbach , Joseph Glaser , Deborah C. Good , Kayhan Gultekin , Jeffrey S. Hazboun , Sophie Hourihane , Kristina Islo , Ross J. Jennings , Aaron D. Johnson , Megan L. Jones , Andrew R. Kaiser , David L. Kaplan , Luke Zoltan Kelley , Matthew Kerr , Joey S. Key , Tonia C. Klein , Nima Laal , Michael T. Lam , William G. Lamb , T. Joseph W. Lazio , Natalia Lewandowska , Tyson B. Littenberg , Tingting Liu , Andrea Lommen , Duncan R. Lorimer , Jing Luo , Ryan S. Lynch , Chung-Pei Ma , Dustin R. Madison , Margaret A. Mattson , Alexander McEwen , James W. McKee , Maura A. McLaughlin , Natasha McMann , Bradley W. Meyers , Patrick M. Meyers , Chiara M. F. Mingarelli , Andrea Mitridate , Priyamvada Natarajan , Cherry Ng , David J. Nice , Stella Koch Ocker , Ken D. Olum , Timothy T. Pennucci , Benetge B. P. Perera , Polina Petrov , Nihan S. Pol , Henri A. Radovan , Scott M. Ransom , Paul S. Ray , Joseph D. Romano , Shashwat C. Sardesai , Ann Schmiedekamp , Carl Schmiedekamp , Kai Schmitz , Levi Schult , Brent J. Shapiro-Albert , Xavier Siemens , Joseph Simon , Magdalena S. Siwek , Ingrid H. Stairs , Daniel R. Stinebring , Kevin Stovall , Jerry P. Sun , Abhimanyu Susobhanan , Joseph K. Swiggum , Jacob Taylor , Stephen R. Taylor , Jacob E. Turner , Caner Unal , Michele Vallisneri , Rutger van Haasteren , Sarah J. Vigeland , Haley M. Wahl , Qiaohong Wang , Caitlin A. Witt , Olivia Young

We explore the use of Gibbs sampling in estimating the noise properties of individual pulsars and illustrate its effectiveness using the NANOGrav 11-year data set. We find that Gibbs sampling noise modeling (GM) is more efficient than the…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2023-09-08 Nima Laal , William G Lamb , Joseph D. Romano , Xavier Siemens , Stephen R. Taylor , Rutger van Haasteren

The stochastic gravitational-wave background is imprinted on the times of arrival of radio pulses from millisecond pulsars. Traditional pulsar timing analyses fit a timing model to each pulsar and search the residuals of the fit for a…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-11-13 William DeRocco , Jeff A. Dror

We study whether the signal seen by pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) may originate from gravitational waves (GWs) induced by large primordial perturbations. Such perturbations may be accompanied by a sizeable primordial black hole (PBH)…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2023-11-16 Gabriele Franciolini , Antonio Junior Iovino , Ville Vaskonen , Hardi Veermae

The stochastic gravitational wave background from compact binary coalescences is expected to be the first detectable stochastic signal via cross-correlation searches with terrestrial detectors. It encodes the cumulative merger history of…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2026-02-17 Michael Ebersold , Tania Regimbau

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…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2018-01-16 R N Manchester

It is expected that gravitational waves, similar to electromagnetic waves, can be gravitationally lensed by intervening matters, producing multiple instances of the same signal arriving at different times from different apparent luminosity…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2023-06-14 Rico K. L. Lo , Ignacio Magana Hernandez

Observations of low-frequency gravitational waves will require the highest possible timing precision from an array of the most spin-stable pulsars. We can improve the sensitivity of a pulsar timing array (PTA) to different…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2018-11-28 M. T. Lam

Massive black hole binary systems, with masses in the range ~10^4-10^10 \msun, are among the primary sources of gravitational waves in the frequency window ~10^-9 Hz - 0.1 Hz. Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) and the Laser Interferometer Space…

Astrophysics · Physics 2009-11-13 Alberto Sesana , Alberto Vecchio , Carlo Nicola Colacino