The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array II. Customised pulsar noise models for spatially correlated gravitational waves

Abstract

The nanohertz gravitational wave background (GWB) is expected to be an aggregate signal of an ensemble of gravitational waves emitted predominantly by a large population of coalescing supermassive black hole binaries in the centres of merging galaxies. Pulsar timing arrays, ensembles of extremely stable pulsars, are the most precise experiments capable of detecting this background. However, the subtle imprints that the GWB induces on pulsar timing data are obscured by many sources of noise. These must be carefully characterized to increase the sensitivity to the GWB. In this paper, we present a novel technique to estimate the optimal number of frequency coefficients for modelling achromatic and chromatic noise and perform model selection. We also incorporate a new model to fit for scattering variations in the pulsar timing package temponest and created realistic simulations of the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) datasets that allowed us to test the efficacy of our noise modelling algorithms. We present an in-depth analysis of the noise properties of 25 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) that form the second data release (DR2) of the EPTA and investigate the effect of incorporating low-frequency data from the Indian PTA collaboration. We use enterprise and temponest packages to compare noise models with those reported with the EPTA DR1. We find that, while in some pulsars we can successfully disentangle chromatic from achromatic noise owing to the wider frequency coverage in DR2, in others the noise models evolve in a more complicated way. We also find evidence of long-term scattering variations in PSR J1600$-$3053. Through our simulations, we identify intrinsic biases in our current noise analysis techniques and discuss their effect on GWB searches. The results presented here directly help improve sensitivity to the GWB and are already being used as part of global PTA efforts.

arXiv comment20 pages, 6 figures, 9 tables

References in corpus (51)

• Multimodal nested sampling: an efficient and robust alternative to MCMC methods for astronomical data analysis
• Bilby: A user-friendly Bayesian inference library for gravitational-wave astronomy
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year Data Set: Search For An Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• Switched magnetospheric regulation of pulsar spin-down
• The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array Project
• High-precision timing of 42 millisecond pulsars with the European Pulsar Timing Array
• Limits on the Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background from the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves
• 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
• Common-red-signal analysis with 24-yr high-precision timing of the European Pulsar Timing Array: Inferences in the stochastic gravitational-wave background search
• Assessing the Role of Spin Noise in the Precision Timing of Millisecond Pulsars
• TempoNest: A Bayesian approach to pulsar timing analysis
• 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
• From Spin Noise to Systematics: Stochastic Processes in the First International Pulsar Timing Array Data Release
• New advances in the Gaussian-process approach to pulsar-timing data analysis
• Frequency-Dependent Dispersion Measures and Implications for Pulsar Timing
• Timing of young radio pulsars I: Timing noise, periodic modulation and proper motion
• Testing Theories of Gravitation Using 21-Year Timing of Pulsar Binary J1713+0747
• Pulsar Observations of Extreme Scattering Events
• A pulsar-based timescale from the International Pulsar Timing Array
• From Bright Binaries To Bumpy Backgrounds: Mapping Realistic Gravitational Wave Skies With Pulsar-Timing Arrays
• The CHIME Pulsar Project: System Overview
• The Indian Pulsar Timing Array: First data release
• Profile shape stability and phase jitter analyses of millisecond pulsars
• Limits on anisotropy in the nanohertz stochastic gravitational-wave background
• The noise properties of 42 millisecond pulsars from the European Pulsar Timing Array and their impact on gravitational wave searches
• A Second Chromatic Timing Event of Interstellar Origin toward PSR J1713+0747
• Prospects for High-Precision Pulsar Timing
• Non-Gaussian estimates of tensions in cosmological parameters
• The impact of Solar wind variability on pulsar timing
• The disturbance of a millisecond pulsar magnetosphere
• Measurements of pulse jitter and single-pulse variability in millisecond pulsars using MeerKAT
• Low-rank approximations for large stationary covariance matrices, as used in the Bayesian and generalized-least-squares analysis of pulsar-timing data
• Noise analysis in the European Pulsar Timing Array data release 2 and its implications on the gravitational-wave background search
• Studying the solar system with the International Pulsar Timing Array
• Evidence of an asteroid encountering a pulsar
• A Gamma-ray Pulsar Timing Array Constrains the Nanohertz Gravitational Wave Background
• Modelling and mitigating refractive propagation effects in precision pulsar timing observations
• Dispersion measure variability for 36 millisecond pulsars at 150MHz with LOFAR
• The NANOGrav 11-Year Data Set: Evolution of Gravitational Wave Background Statistics
• A revisit of PSR J1909$-$3744 with 15-year high-precision timing
• Evaluating the prevalence of spurious correlations in pulsar timing array datasets
• Evidence for profile changes in PSR J1713+0747 using the uGMRT
• Consistency of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array Signal with a Nanohertz Gravitational-wave Background
• The NANOGrav 11-year Data Set: Solar Wind Sounding Through Pulsar Timing
• Single pulse and profile variability study of PSR J1022+1001
• Is there a spectral turnover in the spin noise of millisecond pulsars?
• Wideband timing of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array UWL data
• Variable Scintillation Arcs of Millisecond Pulsars observed with the Large European Array for Pulsars
• Revisiting profile instability of J1022+1001

Cited by in corpus (53)

• The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array III. Search for gravitational wave signals
• Have pulsar timing array methods detected a cosmological phase transition?
• The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array V. Search for continuous gravitational wave signals
• The neutron star mass, distance, and inclination from precision timing of the brilliant millisecond pulsar J0437$-$4715
• The MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array: The $4.5$-year data release and the noise and stochastic signals of the millisecond pulsar population
• NANOGrav signal from axion inflation
• Probing The Early Universe Cosmology With NANOGrav: Possibilities and Limitations
• Realisation of the ultra-slow roll phase in Galileon inflation and PBH overproduction
• Towards distinguishing Dirac from Majorana neutrino mass with gravitational waves
• From quantum gravity to gravitational waves through cosmic strings
• Testing Realistic $SO(10)$ SUSY GUTs with Proton Decay and Gravitational Waves
• Large fluctuations and Primordial Black Holes
• Electromagnetic signatures from accreting massive black hole binaries in time domain photometric surveys
• Emission signatures from sub-pc Post-Newtonian binaries embedded in circumbinary discs
• Obviating PBH overproduction for SIGWs generated by Pulsar Timing Arrays in loop corrected EFT of bounce
• Status Report on Global Pulsar-Timing-Array Efforts to Detect Gravitational Waves
• Astrophysical neutrino oscillations after pulsar timing array analyses
• Primordial black holes generated by fast-roll mechanism in non-canonical natural inflation
• Exploring the time variability of the Solar Wind using LOFAR pulsar data
• The Impact of Spin in Compact Binary Foreground Subtraction for Estimating the Residual Stochastic Gravitational-wave Background in Ground-based Detectors
• Testing strengths, limitations and biases of current Pulsar Timing Arrays detection analyses on realistic data
• Constraints on conformal ultralight dark matter couplings from the European Pulsar Timing Array
• Untangling PBH overproduction in $w$-SIGWs generated by Pulsar Timing Arrays for MST-EFT of single field inflation
• On the behaviour of eccentric sub-pc massive black hole binaries embedded in massive discs
• Mechanisms for producing Primordial Black Holes from Inflationary Models Beyond Fine-Tuning
• Stochastic gravitational wave background: birth from string-wall death
• Resolving the nano-Hz gravitational wave sky: the detectability of eccentric binaries with PTA experiments
• Systematic errors in searches for nanohertz gravitational waves
• Measuring glitch recoveries and braking indices with Bayesian model selection
• Separating deterministic and stochastic gravitational wave signals in realistic pulsar timing array datasets
• Ensemble noise properties of the European Pulsar Timing Array
• Neural Networks unveiling the properties of gravitational wave background from massive black hole binaries
• Thermodynamical uncertainties for primordial black holes from cosmological phase transitions
• A Cyclic Spectroscopy Scintillation Study of PSR B1937+21 I. Demonstration of Improved Scintillometry
• Realistic consecutive galaxy mergers form eccentric PTA sources
• Regularizing the Pulsar Timing Array likelihood: A path towards Fourier Space
• Choosing suitable noise models for nanohertz gravitational-wave astrophysics
• The Chinese Pulsar Timing Array data release I. Single pulsar noise analysis
• Probing intermediate-mass black hole binaries with the Lunar Gravitational-wave Antenna
• Impact of the observation frequency coverage on the significance of a gravitational wave background detection in PTA data
• Reconciling PTA and JWST and preparing for LISA with POMPOCO: a Parametrisation Of the Massive black hole POpulation for Comparison to Observations
• On the anisotropies of the cosmological gravitational-wave background from pulsar timing array observations
• Rapid Construction of Joint Pulsar Timing Array Datasets: The Lite Method
• An SZ-Like Effect on Cosmological Gravitational Wave Backgrounds
• Connecting Inflation to the NANOGrav 15-year Data Set via Massive Gravity
• An updated constraint for the Gravitational Wave Background from the Gamma-ray Pulsar Timing Array
• On the calculation of p-values for quadratic statistics in Pulsar Timing Arrays
• The NANOGrav 15 yr Data Set: Customized Chromatic Noise Models
• Stochastic gravitational wave background anisotropies from inflation with non-Bunch-Davies states
• Measuring black hole spin through gravitational lensing of pulsars
• Mutated hilltop inflation in light of Planck/ACT observations
• Ultralight scalar dark matter versus nonadiabatic perfect fluid dark matter in pulsar timing
• Enhanced activity in close dual-AGN systems in the local Universe