Future microhertz detections combined with nanohertz pulsar terms can serve as gravity echoes to measure supermassive black hole binary inspiral rates from hundreds to thousands of years in the past.
The NANOGrav 15 yr Data Set: Targeted Searches for Supermassive Black Hole Binaries
11 Pith papers cite this work, alongside 1 external citations. Polarity classification is still indexing.
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abstract
We present the first targeted searches for continuous gravitational waves (CWs) from 114 active galactic nuclei (AGN) that may host supermassive black hole binaries, using the NANOGrav 15 yr data set. By incorporating electromagnetic priors on sky location, distance, redshift, and CW frequency, our strain and chirp mass upper limits are typically improved by a factor of $\sim 2$ (median 2.2) relative to all-sky limits at the same frequency. Bayesian comparisons against a model including only a Hellings-Downs correlated background disfavors a CW signal for all targets, with a mean Bayes factor of $0.73 \pm 0.32$. Two targets have Bayes factors slightly above unity, but coherence tests, random targeting experiments, and a conservative accounting of the 114-target trials factor all indicate that they are consistent with noise. We use these two candidates as worked examples to illustrate an end-to-end targeted CW search analysis and a suite of follow up tests that future promising candidates would need to pass. We find that the electromagnetic interpretations of both candidates are ambiguous, and we update the constraints on a putative binary in 3C 66B, ruling out part of its previously allowed parameter space. Ultimately, our results demonstrate the current sensitivity of targeted pulsar timing array searches for CWs and define a roadmap for future multimessenger CW detections.
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representative citing papers
FABLE simulation predictions for the nanohertz gravitational wave background are statistically consistent with NANOGrav 15-year data at 1–2.5σ tension, with physically motivated population modifications further improving agreement.
A joint model of GWB and resolvable SMBHBs for PTA data proposes N_c as astrophysical detection statistic and applies it to NANOGrav 15-year simulations, finding tensions with 21 of 114 AGN candidates and low (2-5%) detection probabilities for isolated sources.
A frequentist CGW search method with non-parametric red noise suppression and optimal pulsar selection achieves Bayesian-comparable accuracy on NANOGrav-based simulations at far lower computational cost.
A complete SMBHB waveform model enables unified PTA searches for mergers and memory signals, with parameter recovery shown on simulated data for 10^8-10^10 solar mass systems.
Third-generation gravitational-wave detectors can constrain frequency-dependent beyond-GR waveform modifications in the stochastic background, but modified propagation effects remain degenerate with astrophysical population parameters.
Simulations of continuous-wave searches show that PTA data first constrain GW frequency and strain amplitude together, then sky location, with chirp mass and inclination following later for evolving sources, with precision depending on source frequency and sky position.
Customized chromatic noise models applied to NANOGrav 15 yr data raise the Bayes factor for Hellings-Downs GWB correlations by a factor of ~8, lower the amplitude to 2.1e-15, and increase the spectral index to 3.5.
Explores SKAO detection of scalar-induced GW backgrounds as probes of primordial non-Gaussianity and parity violation, with LSS cross-correlation to improve SNR.
Bayesian fitting of an eccentric Keplerian orbit to the radio light curve of PKS 2131-021 gives e = 0.053 ± 0.015 without red noise but favors a circular orbit plus DRW noise with e < 0.15.
In a B-L conserving SM extension with U(1)_x dark sector, CP-violating Yukawas generate opposite lepton asymmetries in visible and hidden sectors that sphalerons convert to baryon asymmetry, with gauge-independent bubble nucleation yielding stochastic GW spectra valid in supercooled regimes and a参数s
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