Astrophysics Milestones For Pulsar Timing Array Gravitational Wave Detection

Abstract

The NANOGrav Collaboration reported strong Bayesian evidence for a common-spectrum stochastic process in its 12.5-yr pulsar timing array dataset, with median characteristic strain amplitude at periods of a year of $A_{\mathrm{yr}}=1.92_{-0.55}^{+0.75}\times 10^{-15}$. However, evidence for the quadrupolar Hellings \& Downs interpulsar correlations, which are characteristic of gravitational wave signals, was not yet significant. We emulate and extend the NANOGrav dataset, injecting a wide range of stochastic gravitational wave background (GWB) signals that encompass a variety of amplitudes and spectral shapes, and quantify three key milestones: (I) Given the amplitude measured in the 12.5 yr analysis and assuming this signal is a GWB, we expect to accumulate robust evidence of an interpulsar-correlated GWB signal with 15--17 yrs of data, i.e., an additional 2--5 yrs from the 12.5 yr dataset; (II) At the initial detection, we expect a fractional uncertainty of $40\%$ on the power-law strain spectrum slope, which is sufficient to distinguish a GWB of supermassive black-hole binary origin from some models predicting more exotic origins;(III) Similarly, the measured GWB amplitude will have an uncertainty of $44\%$ upon initial detection, allowing us to arbitrate between some population models of supermassive black-hole binaries. In addition, power-law models are distinguishable from those having low-frequency spectral turnovers once 20~yrs of data are reached. Even though our study is based on the NANOGrav data, we also derive relations that allow for a generalization to other pulsar-timing array datasets. Most notably, by combining the data of individual arrays into the International Pulsar Timing Array, all of these milestones can be reached significantly earlier.

arXiv comment15 pages, 7 figures

References in corpus (56)

• A Fundamental Relation Between Supermassive Black Holes and Their Host Galaxies
• A Relationship Between Nuclear Black Hole Mass and Galaxy Velocity Dispersion
• Introducing the Illustris Project: Simulating the coevolution of dark and visible matter in the Universe
• Properties of galaxies reproduced by a hydrodynamic simulation
• Introducing the Illustris Project: the evolution of galaxy populations across cosmic time
• The merger rate of galaxies in the Illustris Simulation: a comparison with observations and semi-empirical models
• The international pulsar timing array project: using pulsars as a gravitational wave detector
• The stochastic gravitational-wave background from massive black hole binary systems: implications for observations with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Detection methods for stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds: a unified treatment
• High-precision timing of 42 millisecond pulsars with the European Pulsar Timing Array
• The International Pulsar Timing Array: First Data Release
• Gravitational Waves Probe the Coalescence Rate of Massive Black Hole Binaries
• The NANOGrav 11-year Data Set: Pulsar-timing Constraints On The Stochastic Gravitational-wave Background
• Limits on the Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background from the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves
• The NANOGrav Nine-year Data Set: Limits on the Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background
• A systematic search for close supermassive black hole binaries in the Catalina Real-Time Transient Survey
• The International Pulsar Timing Array: Second data release
• NANOGrav Hints to Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter
• The Astrophysics of Nanohertz Gravitational Waves
• Cosmic String Interpretation of NANOGrav Pulsar Timing Data
• Gravitational-Wave Stochastic Background from Kinks and Cusps on Cosmic Strings
• Ultra-Low Frequency Gravitational Radiation from Massive Black Hole Binaries
• Has NANOGrav found first evidence for cosmic strings?
• A Population of Short-Period Variable Quasars from PTF as Supermassive Black Hole Binary Candidates
• Did NANOGrav see a signal from primordial black hole formation?
• Optimal strategies for gravitational wave stochastic background searches in pulsar timing data
• Expected properties of the first gravitational wave signal detected with pulsar timing arrays
• Massive Black Hole Binary Mergers in Dynamical Galactic Environments
• The stochastic background: scaling laws and time to detection for pulsar timing arrays
• The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array
• The NANOGrav Nine-year Data Set: Observations, Arrival Time Measurements, and Analysis of 37 Millisecond Pulsars
• Gravitational-wave cosmology across 29 decades in frequency
• The Gravitational Wave Background from Massive Black Hole Binaries in Illustris: spectral features and time to detection with pulsar timing arrays
• The NANOGrav 12.5 yr Data Set: Observations and Narrowband Timing of 47 Millisecond Pulsars
• Hyper-efficient model-independent Bayesian method for the analysis of pulsar timing data
• A study of spatial correlations in pulsar timing array data
• The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array Project: Second data release
• From Spin Noise to Systematics: Stochastic Processes in the First International Pulsar Timing Array Data Release
• Single Sources in the Low-Frequency Gravitational Wave Sky: properties and time to detection by pulsar timing arrays
• Time-domain Implementation of the Optimal Cross-Correlation Statistic for Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background Searches in Pulsar Timing Data
• Relic Gravitational Waves and Cosmology
• Supermassive Black Hole Binary Candidates from the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey
• Are we there yet? Time to detection of nanohertz gravitational waves based on pulsar-timing array limits
• From Bright Binaries To Bumpy Backgrounds: Mapping Realistic Gravitational Wave Skies With Pulsar-Timing Arrays
• Realistic sensitivity curves for pulsar timing arrays
• Modeling the uncertainties of solar-system ephemerides for robust gravitational-wave searches with pulsar timing arrays
• Gravitational waves and stalled satellites from massive galaxy mergers at z <= 1
• Selection bias in dynamically-measured super-massive black hole samples: consequences for pulsar timing arrays
• Constraining the Solution to the Last Parsec Problem with Pulsar Timing
• Blue-tilted inflationary tensor spectrum and reheating in the light of NANOGrav results
• Noise-marginalized optimal statistic: A robust hybrid frequentist-Bayesian statistic for the stochastic gravitational-wave background in pulsar timing arrays
• Constraints On The Dynamical Environments Of Supermassive Black-hole Binaries Using Pulsar-timing Arrays
• The Photospheric Temperatures of Betelgeuse during the Great Dimming of 2019/2020: No New Dust Required
• Constraints on Black Hole/Host Galaxy Co-evolution and Binary Stalling Using Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Weighing The Evidence For A Gravitational-Wave Background In The First International Pulsar Timing Array Data Challenge
• Supermassive Black Hole Binary Environments: Effects on the Scaling Laws and Time to Detection for the Stochastic Background

Cited by in corpus (70)

• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Evidence for a Gravitational-Wave Background
• Search for an isotropic gravitational-wave background with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Constraints on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from the Gravitational Wave Background
• The International Pulsar Timing Array second data release: Search for an isotropic Gravitational Wave Background
• On the evidence for a common-spectrum process in the search for the nanohertz gravitational-wave background with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array
• Inflationary interpretation of the stochastic gravitational wave background signal detected by pulsar timing array experiments
• The NANOGrav 15-Year Data Set: Detector Characterization and Noise Budget
• Searching For Gravitational Waves From Cosmological Phase Transitions With The NANOGrav 12.5-year dataset
• Gravitational Waves from Domain Walls in Pulsar Timing Array Datasets
• A Refined Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet Inflationary Theoretical Framework
• First-order Phase Transition interpretation of PTA signal produces solar-mass Black Holes
• The Need For Speed: Rapid Refitting Techniques for Bayesian Spectral Characterization of the Gravitational Wave Background Using PTAs
• Decoding the phases of early and late time reheating through imprints on primordial gravitational waves
• Non-tensorial Gravitational Wave Background in NANOGrav 12.5-Year Data Set
• Search for scalar induced gravitational waves in the International Pulsar Timing Array Data Release 2 and NANOgrav 12.5 years datasets
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year data set: Search for Non-Einsteinian Polarization Modes in theGravitational-Wave Background
• Ultra-low frequency gravitational waves from cosmological and astrophysical processes
• Primordial black holes in the curvaton model: possible connections to pulsar timing arrays and dark matter
• Multi-messenger Time-domain Signatures Of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• Forecasting pulsar timing array sensitivity to anisotropy in the stochastic gravitational wave background
• A Gamma-ray Pulsar Timing Array Constrains the Nanohertz Gravitational Wave Background
• Single field inflation in the light of Pulsar Timing Array Data: Quintessential interpretation of blue tilted tensor spectrum through Non-Bunch Davies initial condition
• Axion-Gauge Dynamics During Inflation as the Origin of Pulsar Timing Array Signals and Primordial Black Holes
• Chirality of Gravitational Waves in Chern-Simons $f(R)$ Gravity Cosmology
• Cosmic Strings, Inflation, and Gravity Waves
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year Data Set: Bayesian Limits on Gravitational Waves from Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
• Evaluating the prevalence of spurious correlations in pulsar timing array datasets
• Gravitational Self-Lensing in Populations of Massive Black Hole Binaries
• Consistency of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array Signal with a Nanohertz Gravitational-wave Background
• Constraining gravitational wave propagation using pulsar timing array correlations
• Quality over Quantity: Optimizing pulsar timing array analysis for stochastic and continuous gravitational wave signals
• Hunting the stochastic gravitational wave background in pulsar timing array cross correlations through theoretical uncertainty
• Multi-messenger Approaches to Supermassive Black Hole Binary Detection and Parameter Estimation: Implications for Nanohertz Gravitational Wave Searches with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Radio Scattering Horizons for Galactic and Extragalactic Transients
• Nanohertz Gravitational Wave Astronomy during the SKA Era: An InPTA perspective
• LiteBIRD Science Goals and Forecasts. A Case Study of the Origin of Primordial Gravitational Waves using Large-Scale CMB Polarization
• Testing gravity with cosmic variance-limited pulsar timing array correlations
• Exploring Proxies for the Supermassive Black Hole Mass Function: Implications for Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Disentangling Multiple Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background Sources in PTA Datasets
• Identifying Host Galaxies of Supermassive Black Hole Binaries Found by PTAs
• Beyond the Hellings-Downs curve: Non-Einsteinian gravitational waves in pulsar timing array correlations
• How to Detect an Astrophysical Nanohertz Gravitational-Wave Background
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year data set: A computationally efficient eccentric binary search pipeline and constraints on an eccentric supermassive binary candidate in 3C 66B
• Spatial and Spectral Characterization of the Gravitational-wave Background with the PTA Optimal Statistic
• Correlations for an anisotropic polarized stochastic gravitational wave background in pulsar timing arrays
• Posterior predictive checking for gravitational-wave detection with pulsar timing arrays: I. The optimal statistic
• Generalized $R^p$-attractor Cosmology in the Jordan and Einstein Frames: New Type of Attractors and Revisiting Standard Jordan Frame $R^p$ Inflation
• Harmonic analysis for pulsar timing arrays
• Multimessenger Approaches to Supermassive Black Hole Binary Detection and Parameter Estimation II: Optimal Strategies for a Pulsar Timing Array
• Post-Newtonian-accurate pulsar timing array signals induced by inspiralling eccentric binaries: accuracy, computational cost, and single-pulsar search
• Gravitational Wave Statistics for Pulsar Timing Arrays: Examining Bias from Using a Finite Number of Pulsars
• Sub-GeV dark matter and nano-Hertz gravitational waves from a classically conformal dark sector
• Solving the PTA Data Analysis Problem with a Global Gibbs Scheme
• Toward a test of Gaussianity of a gravitational wave background
• Parameter-Estimation Biases for Eccentric Supermassive Binary Black Holes in Pulsar Timing Arrays: Biases Caused by Ignored Pulsar Terms
• Posterior predictive checking for gravitational-wave detection with pulsar timing arrays: II. Posterior predictive distributions and pseudo Bayes factors
• Seeing the gravitational wave universe
• Unravelling the formation of the first supermassive black holes with the SKA pulsar timing array
• Implications for Pulsar Timing Arrays of Sub-solar Black Hole Detections: From LVK to Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer
• Controlling Outlier Contamination In Multimessenger Time-domain Searches For Supermasssive Binary Black Holes
• The Host Galaxies of PTA Sources: Converting Supermassive BH Binary Parameters into EM Observables
• Analysis of the Gravitational Wave Background Using Gamma-Ray Pulsar Timing Arrays with Next-Generation Detectors
• Searching for continuous gravitational waves in the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array Data Release 3
• Efficient prescription to search for linear gravitational wave memory from hyperbolic black hole encounters and its application to the NANOGrav 12.5-year dataset
• Pulsar Timing Response to Gravitational Waves with Spherical Wavefronts from a Massive Compact Source in the Quadrupole Approximation
• The impact of outliers on pulsar timing arrays
• A Parallelized Bayesian Approach To Accelerated Gravitational-Wave Background Characterization
• Exploring realistic nanohertz gravitational-wave backgrounds
• Time evolution of the equation of state during perturbative reheating and its impact on the inflationary tensor perturbation spectrum
• Fast Bayesian analysis of individual binaries in pulsar timing array data