All-sky analysis of astrochronometric signals induced by gravitational waves

Abstract

We introduce a unified formalism to describe both timing and astrometric perturbations induced on astrophysical point sources by gravitational waves using a complex spin field on the sphere. This allows the use of spin-weighted spherical harmonics to analyse "astrochronometric" observables. This approach simplifies the interpretation and simulation of anisotropies induced in the observables by gravitational waves. It also allows a simplified derivation of angular cross-spectra of the observables and their relationship with generalised Hellings-Downs correlation functions. The spin-weighted formalism also allows an explicit connection between correlation components and the spin of gravitational wave polarisations and any presence of chirality. We also calculate expected signal-to-noise ratios for observables to compare the utility of timing and deflection observables.

15 pages, 7 figures, 4 tables

References in corpus (4)

• Common-red-signal analysis with 24-yr high-precision timing of the European Pulsar Timing Array: Inferences in the stochastic gravitational-wave background search
• Estimating the sensitivity of pulsar timing arrays
• Harmonic space analysis of pulsar timing array redshift maps
• Astrometric Effects of Gravitational Wave Backgrounds with non-Luminal Propagation Speeds