The NANOGrav 15-Year Data Set: Detector Characterization and Noise Budget
read the original abstract
Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are galactic-scale gravitational wave detectors. Each individual arm, composed of a millisecond pulsar, a radio telescope, and a kiloparsecs-long path, differs in its properties but, in aggregate, can be used to extract low-frequency gravitational wave (GW) signals. We present a noise and sensitivity analysis to accompany the NANOGrav 15-year data release and associated papers, along with an in-depth introduction to PTA noise models. As a first step in our analysis, we characterize each individual pulsar data set with three types of white noise parameters and two red noise parameters. These parameters, along with the timing model and, particularly, a piecewise-constant model for the time-variable dispersion measure, determine the sensitivity curve over the low-frequency GW band we are searching. We tabulate information for all of the pulsars in this data release and present some representative sensitivity curves. We then combine the individual pulsar sensitivities using a signal-to-noise-ratio statistic to calculate the global sensitivity of the PTA to a stochastic background of GWs, obtaining a minimum noise characteristic strain of $7\times 10^{-15}$ at 5 nHz. A power law-integrated analysis shows rough agreement with the amplitudes recovered in NANOGrav's 15-year GW background analysis. While our phenomenological noise model does not model all known physical effects explicitly, it provides an accurate characterization of the noise in the data while preserving sensitivity to multiple classes of GW signals.
This paper has not been read by Pith yet.
Forward citations
Cited by 5 Pith papers
-
Forecasting graviton-mass constraints from the full covariance of PTA-astrometry ORF estimators
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 ...
-
Artificial Precision Timing Array: bridging the decihertz gravitational-wave sensitivity gap with clock satellites
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.
-
Primordial Black Hole from Tensor-induced Density Fluctuation: First-order Phase Transitions and Domain Walls
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 mat...
-
Thermodynamical uncertainties for primordial black holes from cosmological phase transitions
A state-of-the-art thermodynamic analysis of supercooled phase transitions yields a universal lower bound β/H_* ≃ 5 and shows that viable PBH dark-matter parameter space in classically conformal gauge-Higgs theories i...
-
Probing Dynamical Inverse Seesaw with Low-frequency Gravitational Waves
Dynamical inverse seesaw predicts low-frequency stochastic GW signals from a first-order phase transition, with complementarity to heavy neutral lepton searches at small active-sterile mixing.
discussion (0)
Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.