Implications of Pulsar Timing Array Results for High Frequency Gravitational Waves

Abstract

Several pulsar timing array (PTA) experiments such as NANOGrav and PPTA recently reported evidence of a gravitational wave (GW) background at nano-Hz frequency band. This signal can originate from scalar-induced gravitational waves (SIGW) generated by the enhanced curvature perturbation. Production of SIGW is expected to be accompanied by formation of primordial black holes (PBH), which can emit GW through binary mergers. Here we perform a joint likelihood inference on PTA datasets in combination with existing limits on PBH abundance and GW density, we derive full Bayesian posteriors for PBH distribution and relevant PBH merger signal. Our results show that analysis using PTA data alone implies significant overproduction of PBHs, and accounting for current PBH limits causes visible shifts in SIGW posterior. If PTA signals are indeed of SIGW origin, the required curvature perturbation amplitude produces PBHs in a narrow mass window of $[6\times 10^{-2},2\times 10^{-1}]m_{\odot }$. Mergers of these PBHs can leave a strong GW signature in $[10^{-3},10^5]$ Hz frequency range, to be detectable at upcoming interferometers such as LISA, aLIGO, Einstein Telescope, DECIGO and BBO, etc. This offers a multi-frequency opportunity to further scrutinize the source of the observed PTA signal and can potentially improve current PBH constraints by up to 5 orders of magnitudes.

Version accepted by PLB, 10 pages, 6 figures, title changed according to referee comments

References in corpus (63)

• Advanced Virgo: a 2nd generation interferometric gravitational wave detector
• MultiNest: an efficient and robust Bayesian inference tool for cosmology and particle physics
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Evidence for a Gravitational-Wave Background
• Characterization of the LIGO detectors during their sixth science run
• Did LIGO detect dark matter?
• Search for an isotropic gravitational-wave background with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array
• An absorption profile centred at 78 megahertz in the sky-averaged spectrum
• Searching for the nano-Hertz stochastic gravitational wave background with the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array Data Release I
• New cosmological constraints on primordial black holes
• Limits on the Macho Content of the Galactic Halo from the EROS-2 Survey of the Magellanic Clouds
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Search for Signals from New Physics
• Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter: Recent Developments
• The NANOGrav 12.5-year Data Set: Search For An Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• Primordial Black Holes
• Semianalytic Calculation of Gravitational Wave Spectrum Nonlinearly Induced from Primordial Curvature Perturbations
• Sensitivity curves for searches for gravitational-wave backgrounds
• KAGRA: 2.5 Generation Interferometric Gravitational Wave Detector
• Microlensing constraints on primordial black holes with the Subaru/HSC Andromeda observation
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Constraints on Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from the Gravitational Wave Background
• Challenges and Opportunities of Gravitational Wave Searches at MHz to GHz Frequencies
• Cosmology with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
• 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
• ARCADE 2 Measurement of the Extra-Galactic Sky Temperature at 3-90 GHz
• Formation and Evolution of Primordial Black Hole Binaries in the Early Universe
• Detecting high-frequency gravitational waves with optically-levitated sensors
• Common-red-signal analysis with 24-yr high-precision timing of the European Pulsar Timing Array: Inferences in the stochastic gravitational-wave background search
• Search for "Invisible" Axion Dark Matter in the $3.3\text{-}4.2\mu$eV Mass Range
• A universal threshold for primordial black hole formation
• Implications of the NANOGrav results for inflation
• Stochastic gravitational waves associated with the formation of primordial black holes
• Gravitational waves induced by scalar perturbations as probes of the small-scale primordial spectrum
• The Threshold for Primordial Black Hole Formation: a Simple Analytic Prescription
• Signatures of primordial black hole dark matter
• Clusters of primordial black holes
• Inflationary interpretation of the stochastic gravitational wave background signal detected by pulsar timing array experiments
• Solar-Mass Primordial Black Holes Explain NANOGrav Hint of Gravitational Waves
• Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background from Coalescing Binary Black Holes
• Primordial gravitational waves from NANOGrav: a broken power-law approach
• Bayesian analysis of LIGO-Virgo mergers: Primordial vs. astrophysical black hole populations
• Gravitational Wave Detection with High Frequency Phonon Trapping Acoustic Cavities
• Searching For Gravitational Waves From Cosmological Phase Transitions With The NANOGrav 12.5-year dataset
• Primordial gravitational waves in the nano-Hertz regime and PTA data -- towards solving the GW inverse problem
• Primordial blackholes and gravitational waves for an inflection-point model of inflation
• PBH formation in EFT of single field inflation with sharp transition
• Gravitational Waves from Domain Walls in Pulsar Timing Array Datasets
• Quantum loop effects on the power spectrum and constraints on primordial black holes
• Hunt for Light Primordial Black Hole Dark Matter with Ultra-High-Frequency Gravitational Waves
• Massive black hole binary systems and the NANOGrav 12.5 year results
• On the gravitational wave sources from the NANOGrav 12.5-yr data
• Galileon inflation evades the no-go for PBH formation in the single-field framework
• Search for scalar induced gravitational waves in the International Pulsar Timing Array Data Release 2 and NANOgrav 12.5 years datasets
• Detecting Planetary-mass Primordial Black Holes with Resonant Electromagnetic Gravitational Wave Detectors
• Constraining primordial black holes as dark matter at JUNO
• Bayesian Implications for the Primordial Black Holes from NANOGrav's Pulsar-Timing Data Using the Scalar-Induced Gravitational Waves
• Search for features in the spectrum of primordial perturbations using Planck and other datasets
• The stochastic gravitational wave background from close hyperbolic encounters of primordial black holes in dense clusters
• 21-cm constraints on spinning primordial black holes
• Analytical results for binary dynamics at the first post-Newtonian order in Einstein-Cartan theory with the Weyssenhoff fluid
• Implications for primordial black holes from cosmological constraints on scalar-induced gravitational wave
• Probing the Universe's Tilt with the Cosmic Infrared Background Dipole
• General black-hole metric mimicking Schwarzschild spacetime
• Gravitational Waves and Possible Fast Radio Bursts from Axion Clumps

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Primordial Black Holes: A Review of Formation and Evolution
• Searching Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background Landscape Across Frequency Bands