Toward a test of Gaussianity of a gravitational wave background

Abstract

The degree of Gaussianity of a field offers insights into its cosmological nature, and its statistical properties serve as indicators of its Gaussianity. In this work, we examine the signatures of Gaussianity in a gravitational wave background (GWB) by analyzing the cumulants of the one- and two-point functions of the relevant observable, using pulsar timing array (PTA) simulations as a proof-of-principle. This appeals to the ongoing debate about the source of the spatially-correlated common-spectrum process observed in PTAs, which is likely associated with a nanohertz stochastic GWB. We investigate the distribution of the sample statistics of the one-point function in the presence of a Gaussian GWB. Our results indicate that, within PTAs, one-point statistics are impractical for constraining the Gaussianity of the nanohertz GWB due to dominant pulsar noises. However, our analysis of two-point statistics shows promise, suggesting that it may be possible to constrain the Gaussianity of the nanohertz GWB using PTA data. We also emphasize that the Gaussian signatures identified in the one- and two-point functions in this work are expected to be applicable to any gravitational wave background.

18 pages + refs, 9 figures, v2: discussion improved, to appear in JCAP

References in corpus (57)

• GWTC-3: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the Second Part of the Third Observing Run
• 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
• Searching for the nano-Hertz stochastic gravitational wave background with the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array Data Release I
• The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array III. Search for gravitational wave signals
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Search for Signals from New Physics
• The stochastic gravitational-wave background from massive black hole binary systems: implications for observations with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Observations and Timing of 68 Millisecond Pulsars
• The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array I. The dataset and timing analysis
• Cosmic String Interpretation of NANOGrav Pulsar Timing Data
• The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array Third Data Release
• Searching For Gravitational Waves From Cosmological Phase Transitions With The NANOGrav 12.5-year dataset
• New advances in the Gaussian-process approach to pulsar-timing data analysis
• Astrophysics Milestones For Pulsar Timing Array Gravitational Wave Detection
• Cosmological Background Interpretation of Pulsar Timing Array Data
• Probing Anisotropies of the Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background with LISA
• Stochastic gravitational-wave background from metastable cosmic strings
• Science with the TianQin Observatory: Preliminary Results on Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background
• Constraining cosmological phase transitions with the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array
• Variance of the Hellings-Downs Correlation
• Gravitational Waves from SMBH Binaries in Light of the NANOGrav 15-Year Data
• Implications for the Supermassive Black Hole Binaries from the NANOGrav 15-year Data Set
• Hellings and Downs correlation of an arbitrary set of pulsars
• 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
• Estimating the sensitivity of pulsar timing arrays
• Forecasting pulsar timing array sensitivity to anisotropy in the stochastic gravitational wave background
• Search for Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background from Massive Gravity in the NANOGrav 12.5-Year Data Set
• Pulsar and cosmic variances of pulsar timing-array correlation measurements of the stochastic gravitational wave background
• Broken blue-tilted inflationary gravitational waves: a joint analysis of NANOGrav 15-year and BICEP/Keck 2018 data
• Searching for Isotropic Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background in the International Pulsar Timing Array Second Data Release
• Stochastic gravitational wave background phenomenology in a pulsar timing array
• Pulsar timing array observations as possible hints for nonsingular cosmology
• Constraining gravitational wave propagation using pulsar timing array correlations
• Harmonic space analysis of pulsar timing array redshift maps
• A Test of Gravity with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Hunting the stochastic gravitational wave background in pulsar timing array cross correlations through theoretical uncertainty
• Null energy condition violation during inflation and pulsar timing array observations
• Dissecting the Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background with Astrometry
• Nanohertz Gravitational Wave Astronomy during the SKA Era: An InPTA perspective
• Gravitational wave astronomy with LIGO and similar detectors in the next decade
• Detecting the stochastic gravitational wave background with the TianQin detector
• Spectral Variance in a Stochastic Gravitational-Wave Background From a Binary Population
• Probing a stationary non-Gaussian background of stochastic gravitational waves with pulsar timing arrays
• Ephemeris Errors and the Gravitational Wave Signal: Harmonic Mode Coupling in Pulsar Timing Array Searches
• Testing gravity with cosmic variance-limited pulsar timing array correlations
• Looking out for the Galileon in the nanohertz gravitational wave sky
• Pulsar timing array source ensembles
• Supermassive Black Hole Binary Environments: Effects on the Scaling Laws and Time to Detection for the Stochastic Background
• Eccentricity effects on the supermassive black hole gravitational wave background
• Charting the Nanohertz Gravitational Wave Sky with Pulsar Timing Arrays
• Gravitational wave non-linearities and pulsar-timing array angular correlations
• Constraining models of Inflationary Magnetogenesis with NANOGrav
• Non-linear corrections of overlap reduction functions for pulsar timing arrays
• Origin of the Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background: First-Order Phase Transition vs. Black Hole Mergers
• The spatial correlations between pulsars for interfering sources in Pulsar Timing Array and evidence for gravitational-wave background in NANOGrav 15-year data set
• The distribution of the gravitational-wave background from supermassive black holes

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Connecting Inflation to the NANOGrav 15-year Data Set via Massive Gravity
• Finite Populations & Finite Time: The Non-Gaussianity of a Gravitational Wave Background
• Accurate pulsar timing array residual variances and correlation of the stochastic gravitational wave background