Unveiling the Graviton Mass Bounds through Analysis of 2023 Pulsar Timing Array Data Releases

Abstract

Strong evidence for the Helling-Downs correlation curves have been reported by multiple pulsar timing array (PTA) collaborations in middle 2023. In this work, we investigate the graviton mass bounds by analyzing the observational data of the overlap ruduction functions from the NANOGrav 15-year data release and CPTA first data release. The results from our data analysis display the state-of-the-art upper limits on the graviton mass at 90\% confidence level, namely, $m_g\lesssim 8.6\times 10^{-24}\mathrm{eV}$ from NANOGrav and $m_g\lesssim 3.8\times 10^{-23}\mathrm{eV}$ from CPTA. We also study the cosmic-variance limit on the graviton mass bounds, i.e., ${\sigma }_{m_g}^{\mathrm{CV}}=4.8\times 10^{-24}\mathrm{eV}\times f/(10\mathrm{year}{)}^{-1}$, with $f$ being a typical frequency band of PTA observations. This is equivalent to the cosmic-variance limit on the speed of gravitational waves, i.e., ${\sigma }_{v_g}^{\mathrm{CV}}=0.07c$, with $c$ being the speed of light. Moreover, we discuss potential implications of these results for scenarios of ultralight tensor dark matter.

arXiv comment7 pages, 4 figures, two columns, version for publication

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• Charting the Nanohertz Gravitational Wave Sky with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Fundamental Physics and Cosmology with TianQin
• Unveiling the existence of nontensorial gravitational-wave polarizations from individual supermassive black hole binaries with pulsar timing arrays
• Connecting Inflation to the NANOGrav 15-year Data Set via Massive Gravity