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Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) observations have recently gathered substantial evidence for the existence of a gravitational wave background in the nHz frequency band. Searching for anisotropies in this signal is key to determining its origin,…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2024-09-02 Paul Frederik Depta , Valerie Domcke , Gabriele Franciolini , Mauro Pieroni

One of the imminent science goals of pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) is the detection of a continuous gravitational wave (CGW) emitted by an individual supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB). SMBHBs that cause CGWs with GW frequencies…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2026-02-18 Kathrin Grunthal , Nataliya Porayko , David J. Champion , Michael Kramer

Recent pulsar timing array results, including the NANOGrav 15-year data set, show evidence for a stochastic gravitational-wave background (GWB) in the nanohertz band. We present a Bayesian framework to compare three possible origins: (i) a…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2025-10-28 Mengshen Wang , Zuocheng Zhang , Hua Xu

We study the capability of a pulsar timing array (PTA) to individually resolve and localize in the sky monochromatic gravitational wave (GW) sources. Given a cosmological population of inspiralling massive black hole binaries, their…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-03 Stanislav Babak , Alberto Sesana

Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) have recently entered the detection era, quickly moving beyond the goal of simply improving sensitivity at the lowest frequencies for the sake of observing the stochastic gravitational wave background (GWB), and…

Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTA) provide a powerful framework to measure low-frequency gravitational waves, but accuracy and robustness of the results are challenged by complex noise processes that must be accurately modeled. Standard PTA…

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics · Physics 2026-05-20 Eleonora Villa , Luigi D'Amico , Aldo Barca , Fatima Modica Bittordo , Francesco Alì , Massimo Meneghetti , Luca Naso

Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are searching for nanohertz-frequency gravitational waves (GWs) through cross-correlation of pulse arrival times from a set of radio pulsars. PTAs have relied upon a frequency-shift formula of the pulse, where…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2024-07-03 Ryousuke Kubo , Kakeru Yamahira , Hideki Asada

Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) have recently found evidence for a nanohertz-frequency stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB). Constraining its spectral characteristics will reveal its origins. To achieve this, we must understand how…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2023-11-15 William G. Lamb , Stephen R. Taylor , Rutger van Haasteren

With strong evidence of a common-spectrum stochastic process in the most recent datasets from the NANOGrav Collaboration, the European Pulsar Timing Array (PTA), Parkes PTA, and the International PTA, it is crucial to assess the effects of…

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

Incredible progress on the theoretical uncertainty of the spatial correlations of the stochastic gravitational wave (GW) background were recently made. However, it remains to realize the impact of this theoretical uncertainty on PTA cross…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2023-08-16 Reginald Christian Bernardo , Kin-Wang Ng

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…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2015-06-23 Pablo A. Rosado , Alberto Sesana , Jonathan Gair

The pulsar timing array (PTA) is a powerful technique for detecting nanohertz gravitational wave backgrounds (GWBs). However, conventional PTAs lack sensitivity to parity violation in the GWB. In this work, we propose a dipole pulsar timing…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2026-04-10 Baoyu Xu , Hanyu Jiang , Rong-Gen Cai , Misao Sasaki , Yun-Long Zhang

Pulsars are very stable clocks in space which have many applications to problems in physics and astrophysics. Observations of double-neutron-star binary systems have given the first observational evidence for the existence of gravitational…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2010-04-22 R. N. Manchester

Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are designed to detect the predicted gravitational wave (GW) background produced by a cosmological population of supermassive black hole (SMBH) binaries. In this contribution I review the physics of such GW…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2015-06-16 A. Sesana

We calculate the properties, occurrence rates and detection prospects of individually resolvable 'single sources' in the low frequency gravitational wave (GW) spectrum. Our simulations use the population of galaxies and massive black hole…

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena · Physics 2018-03-28 Luke Zoltan Kelley , Laura Blecha , Lars Hernquist , Alberto Sesana , Stephen R. Taylor

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…

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics · Physics 2026-05-07 Chiara Cecchini , Jonas El Gammal , Gabriele Franciolini , Mauro Pieroni

Supermassive black hole -- host galaxy relations are key to the computation of the expected gravitational wave background (GWB) in the pulsar timing array (PTA) frequency band. It has been recently pointed out that standard relations…

Astrophysics of Galaxies · Physics 2016-09-07 A. Sesana , F. Shankar , M. Bernardi , R. K. Sheth

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

We propose that the recent observations reported by the different Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) collaborations (i.e.~IPTA, EPTA, PPTA, and NANOGrav) of a common process over several pulsars could correspond to a stochastic gravitational wave…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2022-05-20 Alberto Roper Pol