Pulsar timing arrays: the emerging gravitational-wave landscape
Yale University(耶鲁大学);Flatiron Institute(平顿研究所);University of Connecticut(康涅狄格大学);Stony Brook University(石溪大学);Columbia University(哥伦比亚大学);Università degli Studi di Padova(帕多瓦大学)
C. M. F. Mingarelli, J. A. Casey-Clyde, Y. T. Chang, E. Eisenberg, F. Hutchison, N. Khusid, B. Larsen, A. Moran, F. Semenzato, L. Willson, Q. Zheng
备注:
77 pages, 23 figures. Submitted to Il Nuovo Cimento
Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) experiments have entered a new era with evidence for a nanoHertz gravitational wave background (GWB). This review describes the physics of detection, detailing the noise models and cross-correlation techniques required to isolate the Hellings-Downs curve. We discuss astrophysical implications, arguing that the perceived tension between current amplitudes and standard merger models is largely resolved by new insights into supermassive black hole binary populations. Beyond the stochastic background, we review the framework for multi-messenger continuous gravitational-wave searches, highlighting targeted search campaigns and rigorous detection protocols. We also examine the potential to probe New Physics, including cosmic strings and ultralight dark matter. Critical challenges are addressed, including small-scale leakage bias in anisotropy searches and the separation of deterministic signals from the GWB and pulsar noise. Finally, we outline the field's future, from rapid data combination strategies to the sensitivity gains expected from the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO) and DSA-2000.
A Realistic Pulsar -- Supermassive Black Hole Timing Model
Peking University(北京大学);Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University(北京大学科维理天文与天体物理研究所);National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院国家天文台)
Pulsar timing experiments are currently searching for gravitational waves, and this dissertation focuses on the development and study of the pulsar timing residual models used for continuous wave searches. The first goal of this work is to re-present much of the fundamental physics and mathematics concepts behind the calculations and theory used in pulsar timing. While there exist many reference sources in the literature, I try to offer a fully self-contained explanation of the fundamentals of this research which I hope the reader will find helpful. The next goal broadly speaking has been to f…
Young pulsars deviate from a perfectly regular spin-down by two non-deterministic phenomena: impulsive glitches and timing noise. Both phenomena are interesting per se, and may provide insights into the superfluid properties of neutron stars, but they also act as a barrier to high-precision pulsar timing and gravitational wave experiments. We study a minimal stochastic model to describe the spin-down of a multicomponent neutron star, with fluctuations in both the internal and external torques. The power spectral density and timing noise strength of this kind of model can be obtained analytical…
Gravitational waves provide a new probe of the Universe which can reveal a number of cosmological and astrophysical phenomena that cannot be observed by electromagnetic waves. Different frequencies of gravitational waves are detected by different means. Among them, precision measurements of pulsar timing provides a natural detector for gravitational waves with light-year scale wavelengths. In this review, first a basic framework to detect a stochastic gravitational wave background using pulsar timing array is introduced, and then possible interpretations of the latest observational result of 1…
Radio timing observations of a millisecond pulsar in orbit around the Galactic centre black hole (BH) or a BH at the centre of globular clusters could answer foundational questions in astrophysics and fundamental physics. Pulsar radio astronomy typically employs the post-Keplerian approximation to determine the system parameters. However, in the strong gravitational field around the central BH, higher order relativistic effects may become important. We compare the pulsar timing delays given by the post-Keplerian approximation with those given by a relativistic timing model. We find significant…
We aim to resolve a misunderstanding about whether the so-called "Earth term" in the pulsar timing response to a gravitational wave is in phase among a set of pulsars. We note that the misunderstanding has potentially arisen from the statements that the Earth term is "coherent" or "builds up coherently" among the pulsars. We clarify what authors mean by "coherent" in these statements, pointing out that "coherent" does not indicate that the Earth terms are in phase among the pulsars. Using the pulsar timing residuals induced by a continuous gravitational wave, we show that the Earth term does n…
Pulsar's position, proper motion and parallax are important parameters in timing equations. It is a really challenging work to fit astrometric parameters accurately through pulsar timing, especially for pulsars that show irregular timing properties. As the fast development of related techniques, it is possible to measure astrometric parameters of more and more pulsars in a model$\textrm{-}$independent manner with the Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). In this work, we select 16 normal pulsars, whose parallax and proper motion have not been successfully fitted with timing observations or…
Timing of young radio pulsars I: Timing noise, periodic modulation and proper motion
年轻恒星的平稳降旋受到两种非确定性现象的扰动:毛刺和定时噪声。虽然定时噪声提供了对极端密度下的核物理和等离子体物理的见解,但它是高精度脉冲星定时实验的障碍。本文提出了一种改进的基于贝叶斯推理的方法,用于同时模拟用64 m Parkes射电望远镜观测了$\sim$ 10年的85个高$\dot{E}$射电望远镜样本的随机和确定性参数。定时噪声是一个红色的过程,我们开发了一个参数化的基础上的红色噪声幅度($A_{\rm red}$)和频谱指数($β$)。我们测量的中位数$A_{\rm red}$为$-10.4^{+1.8}_{-1.7}$ yr $^{3/2}$和$β$为$-5.2^{+3.0}_{-3.8}$,并表明定时噪声的强度与$ν^{1}|\dotν|^{-0.6\pm0.1}$成正比,其中$ν$是脉冲星的自旋频率,$\dotν$是其自旋下降率。最后,我们测量了19颗恒星的重要制动指数,两颗恒星的自行,并讨论了五颗恒星到达时间的周期性调制。
Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)(马克斯·普朗克引力物理研究所(爱因斯坦研究所));Leibniz Universität Hannover(汉诺威莱布尼茨大学);Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie(马克斯·普朗克射电天文研究所)
The form of timing residuals due to errors in pulsar spin period $P$ and its derivative $\dot{P}$, in positions, as well as in proper motions, have been well presented for decades in the literature. However, the residual patterns due to errors in the pulsar acceleration have not been reported previously, while a pulsar in the galaxy or a globular cluster (GC) will be unavoidably accelerated. The coupling effect of the pulsar transverse acceleration and the R$\rm{\ddot{o}}$mer delay on timing residuals are simulated in this work. The results show that the residual due to the effect can be ident…
The double pulsar (PSR J0737-3039A/B) provides some of the most stringent tests of general relativity (GR) and its alternatives. The success of this system in tests of GR is largely due to the high-precision, long-term timing of its recycled-pulsar member, pulsar A. On the other hand, pulsar B is a young pulsar that exhibits significant short-term and long-term timing variations due to the electromagnetic-wind interaction with its companion and geodetic precession. Improving pulsar B's timing precision is a key step towards improving the precision in a number of GR tests with PSR J0737-3039A/B…
The main goal of pulsar timing array experiments is to detect correlated signals such as nanohertz-frequency gravitational waves. Pulsar timing data collected in dense monitoring campaigns can also be used to study the stars themselves, their binary companions, and the intervening ionised interstellar medium. Timing observations are extraordinarily sensitive to changes in path length between the pulsar and the Earth, enabling precise measurements of the pulsar positions, distances and velocities, and the shapes of their orbits. Here we present a timing analysis of 25 pulsars observed as part o…
The LOFAR Tied-Array All-Sky Survey (LOTAAS) is the most sensitive untargeted radio pulsar survey performed at low radio frequencies (119--151\,MHz) to date and has discovered 76 new radio pulsars, among which the 23.5-s pulsar J0250+5854, up until recently the slowest-spinning radio pulsar known. Here, we report on the timing solutions of 35 pulsars discovered by LOTAAS, which include a nulling pulsar and a mildly recycled pulsar, and thereby complete the full timing analysis of the LOTAAS pulsar discoveries. We give an overview of the findings from the full LOTAAS sample of 76 pulsars, discu…
Efforts are underway to use high-precision timing of pulsars in order to detect low-frequency gravitational waves. A limit to this technique is the timing noise generated by dispersion in the plasma along the line of sight to the pulsar, including the solar wind. The effects due to the solar wind vary with time, influenced by the change in solar activity on different time scales, ranging up to $\sim 11$ years for a solar cycle. The solar wind contribution depends strongly on the angle between the pulsar line of sight and the solar disk, and is a dominant effect at small separations. Although s…
The SUrvey for Pulsars and Extragalactic Radio Bursts ran from 2014 April to 2019 August, covering a large fraction of the southern hemisphere at mid- to high-galactic latitudes, and consisting of 9-minute pointings taken with the 20-cm multibeam receiver on the Parkes Radio Telescope. Data up to 2017 September 21 have been searched using standard Fourier techniques, single-pulse searches, and Fast Folding Algorithm searches. We present 19 new discoveries, bringing the total to 27 discoveries in the programme, and we report the results of follow-up timing observations at Parkes for 26 of these…
There are two types of timing irregularities seen in pulsars: glitches and timing noise. Both of these phenomena can help us probe the interior of such exotic objects. This article presents a brief overview of the observational and theoretical aspects of pulsar timing irregularities and the main results from the investigations of these phenomena in India. The relevance of such Indian programs for monitoring of young pulsars with the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) is presented, highlighting possible contributions of the Indian neutron star community to the upcoming SKA endeavour.
Pulsar timing is a technique that uses the highly stable spin periods of neutron stars to investigate a wide range of topics in physics and astrophysics. Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) use sets of extremely well-timed pulsars as a Galaxy-scale detector with arms extending between Earth and each pulsar in the array. These challenging experiments look for correlated deviations in the pulsars' timing that are caused by low-frequency gravitational waves (GWs) traversing our Galaxy. PTAs are particularly sensitive to GWs at nanohertz frequencies, which makes them complementary to other space- and grou…
Modeling of frequency-dependent effects, contributed by the turbulence in the free electron density of interstellar plasma, is required to enable the detection of the expected imprints from the stochastic gravitational-wave (GW) background in pulsar timing data. In this work, we present an investigation of temporal variations of interstellar medium for a set of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) with the upgraded GMRT aided by large fractional bandwidth at lower observing frequencies. Contrary to the conventional narrow-band analysis using a frequency invariant template profile, we applied $PulsePortr…
Pulsar timing provides a sensitive probe of small-scale structure. Gravitational perturbations arising from an inhomogeneous environment could manifest as detectable perturbations in the pulsation phase. Consequently, pulsar timing arrays have been proposed as a probe of dark matter substructure on mass scales as small as $10^{-11} M_\odot$. Since the small-scale mass distribution is connected to early-Universe physics, pulsar timing can therefore constrain the thermal history prior to Big Bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), a period that remains largely unprobed. We explore here the prospects for pul…