The observation of massive black hole binaries (MBHBs) with Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) is one of the goals of gravitational wave astronomy in the coming years. Massive (>10^8 solar masses) and low-redshift (< 1.5) sources are expected to be individually resolved by up-coming PTAs, and our ability to use them as astrophysical probes will depend on the accuracy with which their parameters can be measured. In this paper we estimate the precision of such measurements using the Fisher-information-matrix formalism. We restrict to "monochromatic" sources. In this approximation, the system is described by seven parameters and we determine their expected statistical errors as a function of the number of pulsars in the array, the array sky coverage, and the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the signal. At fixed SNR, the gravitational wave astronomy capability of a PTA is achieved with ~20 pulsars; adding more pulsars (up to 1000) to the array reduces the source error-box in the sky ΔΩby a factor ~5 and has negligible consequences on the statistical errors on the other parameters. ΔΩimproves as 1/SNR^2 and the other parameters as 1/SNR. For a fiducial PTA of 100 pulsars uniformly distributed in the sky and a coherent SNR = 10, we find ΔΩ~40 deg^2, a fractional error on the signal amplitude of ~30% (which constraints only very poorly the chirp mass - luminosity distance combination M_c^{5/3}/D_L), and the source inclination and polarization angles are recovered at the ~0.3 rad level. The ongoing Parkes PTA is particularly sensitive to systems located in the southern hemisphere, where at SNR = 10 the source position can be determined with ΔΩ~10 deg^2, but has poorer performance for sources in the northern hemisphere. (Abridged)
Non-Gaussian timing residual skewness in pulsar timing arrays
Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute), Leibnitz Universität Hannover（马克斯·普朗克引力物理研究所（爱因斯坦研究所），莱布尼茨汉诺威大学）；Department of Physics, National Central University（国立中央大学物理系）；Institute of Physics, Academia Sinica（台湾中央研究院物理研究所）；Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Academia Sinica（台湾中央研究院天文及天文物理研究所）
Detecting Chiral Gravitational Wave Background with a Dipole Pulsar Timing Array
National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院国家天文台）；Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学杭州高等研究院）；School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学天文与空间科学学院）；Institute of Fundamental Physics and Quantum Technology, Ningbo University（宁波大学基础物理与量子技术研究所）；Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (WPI), The University of Tokyo（东京大学宇宙木理论研究所）；Asia Pacific Center for Theoretical Physics（亚太理论物理中心）；Leung Center for Cosmology and Particle Astrophysics, National Taiwan University（台湾大学梁氏宇宙学与粒子天体物理学研究中心）；Yukawa Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kyoto University（京都大学汤川理论物理研究所）
