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.
hub Canonical reference
The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Evidence for a Gravitational-Wave Background
Canonical reference. 77% of citing Pith papers cite this work as background.
abstract
We report multiple lines of evidence for a stochastic signal that is correlated among 67 pulsars from the 15-year pulsar-timing data set collected by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves. The correlations follow the Hellings-Downs pattern expected for a stochastic gravitational-wave background. The presence of such a gravitational-wave background with a power-law-spectrum is favored over a model with only independent pulsar noises with a Bayes factor in excess of $10^{14}$, and this same model is favored over an uncorrelated common power-law-spectrum model with Bayes factors of 200-1000, depending on spectral modeling choices. We have built a statistical background distribution for these latter Bayes factors using a method that removes inter-pulsar correlations from our data set, finding $p = 10^{-3}$ (approx. $3\sigma$) for the observed Bayes factors in the null no-correlation scenario. A frequentist test statistic built directly as a weighted sum of inter-pulsar correlations yields $p = 5 \times 10^{-5} - 1.9 \times 10^{-4}$ (approx. $3.5 - 4\sigma$). Assuming a fiducial $f^{-2/3}$ characteristic-strain spectrum, as appropriate for an ensemble of binary supermassive black-hole inspirals, the strain amplitude is $2.4^{+0.7}_{-0.6} \times 10^{-15}$ (median + 90% credible interval) at a reference frequency of 1/(1 yr). The inferred gravitational-wave background amplitude and spectrum are consistent with astrophysical expectations for a signal from a population of supermassive black-hole binaries, although more exotic cosmological and astrophysical sources cannot be excluded. The observation of Hellings-Downs correlations points to the gravitational-wave origin of this signal.
hub tools
citation-role summary
citation-polarity summary
representative citing papers
Phase-resolved scalar distance bounds are derived for ekpyrotic, bouncing, and cyclic cosmologies, yielding a master condition that lower-bounds ε_ek from remaining distance after conversion and bounce.
Hardening binaries experience deterministic self-acceleration of their center of mass, induced precession, and plane rotation in uniform isotropic media, driving outward spiraling and eccentricity growth in all cases rather than circularization.
A full-covariance formalism for PTA-astrometry ORF estimators forecasts graviton-mass upper limits of 4.41e-24 eV/c2 for current-like setups and 0.48e-24 eV/c2 for SKA/Theia-like future setups, with astrometry adding significant power in the latter case.
Pulsar timing arrays can probe supermassive black hole binaries that merged prior to observations via the pulsar term, with SKA potentially detecting a few such zombie binaries at SNR > 3.
A dipole pulsar timing array detects chiral nanohertz gravitational waves and extends PTA sensitivity into the microhertz regime.
A general relativistic derivation of gravitational wave response in an optically levitated cavity sensor reveals position-dependent strain sensitivity and suppressed input-mirror noise coupling.
Stupendously large black holes cast shadows on the CMB that rule out masses above 10^17 solar masses within the last scattering surface and limit their density parameter to below 10^-5 for masses 10^15 to 10^18 solar masses.
Black holes in ultralight dark matter solitons undergo quasi-periodic stone-skipping orbits driven by soliton dipole excitations, modifying inspiral dynamics when the black hole is much lighter than the soliton.
Bubble collisions in a seesaw model produce right-handed neutrinos that source novel gravitational waves detectable by LISA, ET, and LVK while allowing the lightest RHN to explain dark matter or enable leptogenesis.
Cross-correlating pulsar timing and polarimetry isolates the circular polarization of isotropic stochastic GW backgrounds and shares the Hellings-Downs angular pattern.
In pure axion inflation, detectable gravitational wave signals arise only in parameter regions with strong backreaction that violate the upper bound on ΔN_eff.
Scalar metric perturbations after inflation break conformal invariance and induce quantum production of gravitons, generating a GW spectrum that peaks near GHz frequencies for standard primordial scalar power spectra.
First astrometric constraints on parity-violating SGWB amplitude are reported as h70²ΩV = -0.020 ± 0.025 (Gaia) and -0.004 ± 0.010 (VLBA) at 2σ, consistent with zero, over 4.2e-18 Hz to 1.1e-8 Hz.
Proposes APTA with 6 satellites and 10^{-18} relative clock uncertainty at 1s averaging to achieve sensitivity for observing 10^3-10^4 solar-mass black hole mergers in the decihertz band.
With a physically motivated z_min cutoff, higher-order moments of the SGWB from SMBH binaries depend on the mass function solely via <M^{10/3}>, giving a variance-to-mean ratio for <M^{10/3}>/<M^{5/3}> and a kurtosis-skewness consistency relation independent of redshift evolution.
Tensor perturbations from first-order phase transitions and domain wall annihilation induce curvature fluctuations at second order that form primordial black holes, allowing asteroid-mass PBHs to comprise all dark matter for specific parameter ranges with associated gravitational wave peaks in LISA,
A framework is developed to test beyond-GR effects in nanohertz continuous waves from individual SMBHBs, deriving modified inter-pulsar correlations, antenna responses, and phase delays for three deviation classes, validated by injection-recovery simulations showing parameter recovery and no GR bias
PTA statistical tests lose sensitivity to non-Gaussian GW features after decorrelation and cannot distinguish them model-agnostically.
AM-CW lunar laser ranging achieves μHz SGWB sensitivity of 5.29×10^{-9} D_cov (80 μm range uncertainty) or 2.07×10^{-9} D_cov (50 μm) over 5 years, with discovery possible if covariance degradation stays below ~3.6-13.7.
Analytic gravitational waveforms from radial test-particle infall into a thin-shell traversable wormhole exhibit a characteristic pulse-gap structure from repeated throat crossings and lie within reach of ground-based detectors at ~500 Mpc.
Domain wall annihilation imprints a two-peaked spectrum on induced gravitational waves via an early matter-dominated phase and entropy dilution.
Thick braneworlds feature fragile quasinormal mode spectra due to a butterfly effect but maintain a resilient early ringdown, keeping the standard gravitational wave fingerprint usable.
The gravitational wave background from supermassive black hole binaries has a universal heavy-tailed amplitude distribution with power-law index -4, causing divergent higher moments and dominance of the strongest signals by few loud sources.
citing papers explorer
-
Imprint of domain wall annihilation on induced gravitational waves
Domain wall annihilation imprints a two-peaked spectrum on induced gravitational waves via an early matter-dominated phase and entropy dilution.