Pith. sign in

REVIEW 25 cited by

The Astrophysics of Nanohertz Gravitational Waves

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 1811.08826 v4 pith:XA7V5Y6U submitted 2018-11-15 astro-ph.HE astro-ph.GAgr-qc

classification astro-ph.HEastro-ph.GAgr-qc
keywords ptasnanohertzquestionstimingarticlebandgravitationalunderstanding
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal

Signed reviews

No signed human review yet.

0 comments
read the original abstract

Pulsar timing array (PTA) collaborations in North America, Australia, and Europe, have been exploiting the exquisite timing precision of millisecond pulsars over decades of observations to search for correlated timing deviations induced by gravitational waves (GWs). PTAs are sensitive to the frequency band ranging just below 1 nanohertz to a few tens of microhertz. The discovery space of this band is potentially rich with populations of inspiraling supermassive black-holes binaries, decaying cosmic string networks, relic post-inflation GWs, and even non-GW imprints of axionic dark matter. This article aims to provide an understanding of the exciting open science questions in cosmology, galaxy evolution, and fundamental physics that will be addressed by the detection and study of GWs through PTAs. The focus of the article is on providing an understanding of the mechanisms by which PTAs can address specific questions in these fields, and to outline some of the subtleties and difficulties in each case. The material included is weighted most heavily towards the questions which we expect will be answered in the near-term with PTAs; however, we have made efforts to include most currently anticipated applications of nanohertz GWs.

Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.

Forward citations

Cited by 25 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. Trails of clouds in binary black holes

    gr-qc 2025-12 conditional novelty 7.0 of 10

    Boson clouds around binary black holes generically deplete through orbital resonances, driving eccentricity and spin-orbit tilt toward fixed points—including off-equatorial ones—leaving observable gravitational-wave trails.

  2. New Sensitivity Curves for Gravitational-Wave Signals from Cosmological Phase Transitions

    hep-ph 2020-02 unverdicted novelty 7.0 of 10

    Defines peak-integrated sensitivity curves (PISCs) that fold in the expected spectral shape of gravitational waves from cosmological phase transitions and supplies semianalytical fits plus public data for major detectors.

  3. Discovery of a close-separation binary quasar at the heart of a z~0.2 merging galaxy and its implications for low-frequency gravitational waves

    astro-ph.GA 2019-07 unverdicted novelty 7.0 of 10

    Discovery of a binary quasar at z~0.2 with 430 pc separation indicating a bound SMBH pair each >4e8 Msun, with 2.5 Gyr upper limit on merger timescale and implications for the PTA gravitational wave background.

  4. Sensitivity of Next-Generation CMB Surveys to Neutrinos and Other Light Relics

    astro-ph.CO 2026-08 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    CMB-S4 forecasts: the two-site design reaches sigma(Neff)=0.029 in seven years, the Chile-only revised design reaches 0.030 in nine, and a cosmic-variance-limited survey would reach 0.0073.

  5. QuickGWecc: Fast Bayesian pipeline for searching eccentric binaries in pulsar timing array data

    astro-ph.HE 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    QuickGWecc extends the fast QuickCW framework to relativistic eccentric binaries, with projection-parameter likelihood updates taking about 41 microseconds.

  6. Entanglement, Discord, and Residual Coherence in Scalar-Induced Gravitational Waves

    gr-qc 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 6.0 of 10

    Residual anomalous coherence in scalar perturbations imprints on scalar-induced tensor modes, producing a correlated gravitational-wave background with nontrivial covariance and phase structure instead of a simple spe...

  7. Are PTA measurements sensitive to gravitational wave non-Gaussianities?

    astro-ph.CO 2026-05 unverdicted novelty 6.0 of 10

    PTA statistical tests lose sensitivity to non-Gaussian GW features after decorrelation and cannot distinguish them model-agnostically.

  8. Fingerprints of Individual Supermassive Black Hole Binaries in Pulsar Timing Arrays

    astro-ph.HE 2026-03 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    A single supermassive black hole binary imprints a deterministic, direction-dependent correlation fingerprint on pulsar timing arrays, enabling identification via cross-correlations.

  9. Stochastic gravitational-wave background search using data from five pulsar timing arrays

    astro-ph.CO 2025-12 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Combined five-PTA dataset yields posterior on SGWB power-law amplitude and index consistent with nonzero signal but below 5-sigma significance, with reconstructed angular correlations matching the Hellings-Downs prediction.

  10. Assessing the performance of future space-based detectors: Astrophysical foregrounds and individual sources

    astro-ph.HE 2025-10 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    A unified foreground simulation shows the μAres concept is heavily blurred by massive-black-hole-binary noise while the Decihertz Observatory is the cleanest post-LISA design.

  11. Uncertainties in the supermassive black hole abundance and implications for the GW background

    astro-ph.GA 2025-09 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Cross-catalog offsets in black hole mass proxies shift the predicted nHz gravitational wave background by factors comparable to PTA uncertainties; matching the observed amplitude requires a selection effect of about o...

  12. The Sound of Dark Sectors in Pulsar Timing Arrays

    hep-ph 2024-12 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    A dark sector phase transition at the MeV scale, with a dark Higgs mass around 3 MeV, can reproduce the gravitational wave background seen by pulsar timing arrays.

  13. Deep Neural Emulation of the Supermassive Black-hole Binary Population

    astro-ph.IM 2024-11 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    A normalizing flow emulator trained on the full ensemble distribution of gravitational wave strain from simulated supermassive black hole binaries matches the simulations more closely than the Gaussian process emulato...

  14. The Indian Pulsar Timing Array Data Release 2: III. Search for a Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background

    astro-ph.HE 2026-08 accept novelty 5.0 of 10

    The 7.2-year InPTA DR2 data yield no detection of a stochastic gravitational wave background, a prior-dominated common-process posterior, and a 95% upper limit of A_GWB < 3.4e-14 at gamma = 13/3.

  15. Probing Graviton Mass with MeerKAT PTA and SKA--PTA Forecasts

    astro-ph.CO 2026-07 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    MPTA 4.5-year data imply a 90% upper bound of mg < 2.1 × 10−23 eV/c2, consistent with massless gravitons; SKA-PTA could reach ~10−25 eV/c2.

  16. The NANOGrav 15 yr Data Set: Customized Chromatic Noise Models

    astro-ph.HE 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 5.0 of 10

    Customized chromatic noise models for 67 pulsars detect non-dispersive delays in 21 cases, alter achromatic noise inferences in 19, and enable solar wind density estimates over 1.5 cycles.

  17. Nanohertz gravitational waves from domain walls nucleated during inflation

    gr-qc 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 5.0 of 10

    Finite-duration domain-wall nucleation during inflation produces a curvature power spectrum peaked at nanohertz frequencies whose scalar-induced gravitational waves match NANOGrav and EPTA data in a two-field model.

  18. Detecting gravitational wave background with equivalent configurations in the network of space based optical lattice clocks

    gr-qc 2026-02 unverdicted novelty 5.0 of 10

    Equivalent geometric transformations in optical lattice clock networks preserve the modulus of the overlap reduction function, enabling a four-spacecraft orbital configuration whose strain sensitivity is evaluated aga...

  19. Beyond the Daisy Chain: Running and the 3D EFT View of Supercooled Phase Transitions

    hep-ph 2025-11 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    With renormalisation-group running included, the one-loop high-temperature Daisy-resummed potential at µ=πT reproduces the phase-transition parameters of the two-loop dimensionally reduced EFT, while the no-running on...

  20. Expectations for the first supermassive black-hole binary resolved by PTAs II: Milestones for binary characterization

    astro-ph.IM 2025-10 unverdicted novelty 5.0 of 10

    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 prec...

  21. Expectations for the first supermassive black-hole binary resolved by PTAs I: Model efficacy

    astro-ph.IM 2025-10 unverdicted novelty 5.0 of 10

    Simulations of PTA data show that a full gravitational-wave signal template achieves the highest Bayes factors and most robust parameter estimation for individual supermassive black hole binaries compared to an Earth-...

  22. The NANOGrav 15 yr Data Set: Impacts of Customized Chromatic Noise Models on Gravitational Wave Analyses

    astro-ph.CO 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 4.0 of 10

    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.

  23. Constraining Orbital Eccentricity of a Supermassive Black Hole Binary Candidate PKS 2131-0211

    astro-ph.HE 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 4.0 of 10

    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.

  24. Sensitivity of Weak Lensing Surveys to Gravitational Waves from Inspiraling Supermassive Black Hole Binaries

    astro-ph.CO 2025-12 unverdicted novelty 4.0 of 10

    Weak lensing surveys cannot detect nanohertz-microhertz gravitational waves from supermassive black hole binaries under realistic conditions; only unattainable idealized surveys could probe this band.

  25. Unlocking Gravity and Gravitational Waves with Radio Pulsars: Advances and Challenges

    astro-ph.HE 2025-07 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

    This review summarizes pulsar-based gravity tests and updates simulations predicting that the Double Pulsar will yield a neutron star moment of inertia measurement to about 5% by 2038.

Pith tools