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1. Searches for signatures of ultra-light axion dark matter in polarimetry data of the European Pulsar Timing Array

Author

Porayko, N. K., Usynina, P., Terol-Calvo, J., Camalich, J. Martin, Shaifullah, G. M., Castillo, A., Blas, D., Guillemot, L., Peel, M., Tiburzi, C., Postnov, K., Kramer, M., Antoniadis, J., Babak, S., Nielsen, A. -S. Bak, Barausse, E., Bassa, C. G., Blanchard, C., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Caballero, R. N., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Desvignes, G., Falxa, M., Ferdman, R. D., Franchini, A., Gair, J. R., Goncharov, B., Graikou, E., Grießmeier, J. -M., Guo, Y. J., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jessner, A., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Krishnakumar, M. A., Lackeos, K., Lee, K. J., Liu, K., Liu, Y., Lyne, A. G., McKee, J. W., Main, R. A., Mickaliger, M. B., Niţu, I. C., Parthasarathy, A., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Possenti, A., Leclere, H. Quelquejay, Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Sesana, A., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Stappers, B. W., Susarla, S. C., Theureau, G., van der Wateren, E., Vecchio, A., Krishnan, V. Venkatraman, Wang, J., Wang, L., and Wu, Z.

Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract

Ultra-light axion-like particles (ALPs) can be a viable solution to the dark matter problem. The scalar field associated with ALPs, coupled to the electromagnetic field, acts as an active birefringent medium, altering the polarisation properties of light through which it propagates. In particular, oscillations of the axionic field induce monochromatic variations of the plane of linearly polarised radiation of astrophysical signals. The radio emission of millisecond pulsars provides an excellent tool to search for such manifestations, given their high fractional linear polarisation and negligible fluctuations of their polarisation properties. We have searched for the evidence of ALPs in the polarimetry measurements of pulsars collected and preprocessed for the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) campaign. Focusing on the twelve brightest sources in linear polarisation, we searched for an astrophysical signal from axions using both frequentist and Bayesian statistical frameworks. For the frequentist analysis, which uses Lomb-Scargle periodograms at its core, no statistically significant signal has been found. The model used for the Bayesian analysis has been adjusted to accommodate multiple deterministic systematics that may be present in the data. A statistically significant signal has been found in the dataset of multiple pulsars with common frequency between $10^{-8}$ Hz and $2\times10^{-8}$ Hz, which can most likely be explained by the residual Faraday rotation in the terrestrial ionosphere. Strong bounds on the coupling constant $g_{a\gamma}$, in the same ballpark as other searches, have been obtained in the mass range between $6\times10^{-24}$ eV and $5\times10^{-21}$ eV. We conclude by discussing problems that can limit the sensitivity of our search for ultra-light axions in the polarimetry data of pulsars, and possible ways to resolve them., Comment: 24 pages, 15 figures

Published
2024

2. PSR J0210+5845; An ultra wide binary pulsar with a B6V main-sequence star companion

Author

van der Wateren, E., Bassa, C. G., Janssen, G. H., Yanes-Rizo, I. V., Casares, J., Nelemans, G., Stappers, B. W., and Tan, C. M.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract

We report on radio timing observations of PSR J0210+5845 which reveal large deviations from typical pulsar spin-down behaviour. We interpret these deviations as being due to binary motion around the $V=13.5$ star 2MASS J02105640$+$5845176, which is coincident in celestial position and distance with the pulsar. Archival observations and new optical spectroscopy identify this star as a B6V star with a temperature of $T_\mathrm{eff}\approx 14\,000$K and a mass of $M_\mathrm{c}= 3.5$ to $3.8$M$_\odot$, making it the lowest mass main-sequence star known orbiting a non-recycled pulsar. We found that the timing observations constrain the binary orbit to be wide and moderately eccentric, with an orbital period of $P_\mathrm{b}=47^{+40}_{-14}$yr and eccentricity $e=0.46^{+0.10}_{-0.07}$. We predict that the next periastron passage will occur between 2030 and 2034. Due to the low companion mass, we find that the probability for a system with the properties of PSR J0210+5845 and its binary companion to survive the supernova is low. We show that a low velocity and fortuitously directed natal kick is required for the binary to remain bound during the supernova explosion, and argue that an electron-capture supernova is a plausible formation scenario for the pulsar., Comment: Accepted to A&A

Published
2023

3. Comparing recent PTA results on the nanohertz stochastic gravitational wave background

Author

The International Pulsar Timing Array Collaboration, Agazie, G., Antoniadis, J., Anumarlapudi, A., Archibald, A. M., Arumugam, P., Arumugam, S., Arzoumanian, Z., Askew, J., Babak, S., Bagchi, M., Bailes, M., Nielsen, A. -S. Bak, Baker, P. T., Bassa, C. G., Bathula, A., Bécsy, B., Berthereau, A., Bhat, N. D. R., Blecha, L., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brazier, A., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Burke-Spolaor, S., Burnette, R., Caballero, R. N., Cameron, A., Case, R., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Charisi, M., Chatterjee, S., Chatziioannou, K., Cheeseboro, B. D., Chen, S., Chen, Z. -C., Cognard, I., Cohen, T., Coles, W. A., Cordes, J. M., Cornish, N. J., Crawford, F., Cromartie, H. T., Crowter, K., Curyło, M., Cutler, C. J., Dai, S., Dandapat, S., Deb, D., DeCesar, M. E., DeGan, D., Demorest, P. B., Deng, H., Desai, S., Desvignes, G., Dey, L., Dhanda-Batra, N., Di Marco, V., Dolch, T., Drachler, B., Dwivedi, C., Ellis, J. A., Falxa, M., Feng, Y., Ferdman, R. D., Ferrara, E. C., Fiore, W., Fonseca, E., Franchini, A., Freedman, G. E., Gair, J. R., Garver-Daniels, N., Gentile, P. A., Gersbach, K. A., Glaser, J., Good, D. C., Goncharov, B., Gopakumar, A., Graikou, E., Grießmeier, J. -M., Guillemot, L., Gültekin, K., Guo, Y. J., Gupta, Y., Grunthal, K., Hazboun, J. S., Hisano, S., Hobbs, G. B., Hourihane, S., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Islo, K., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jennings, R. J., Jessner, A., Johnson, A. D., Jones, M. L., Joshi, B. C., Kaiser, A. R., Kaplan, D. L., Kapur, A., Kareem, F., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Kelley, L. Z., Kerr, M., Key, J. S., Kharbanda, D., Kikunaga, T., Klein, T. C., Kolhe, N., Kramer, M., Krishnakumar, M. A., Kulkarni, A., Laal, N., Lackeos, K., Lam, M. T., Lamb, W. G., Larsen, B. B., Lazio, T. J. W., Lee, K. J., Levin, Y., Lewandowska, N., Littenberg, T. B., Liu, K., Liu, T., Liu, Y., Lommen, A., Lorimer, D. R., Lower, M. E., Luo, J., Luo, R., Lynch, R. S., Lyne, A. G., Ma, C. -P., Maan, Y., Madison, D. R., Main, R. A., Manchester, R. N., Mandow, R., Mattson, M. A., McEwen, A., McKee, J. W., McLaughlin, M. A., McMann, N., Meyers, B. W., Meyers, P. M., Mickaliger, M. B., Miles, M., Mingarelli, C. M. F., Mitridate, A., Natarajan, P., Nathan, R. S., Ng, C., Nice, D. J., Niţu, I. C., Nobleson, K., Ocker, S. K., Olum, K. D., Osłowski, S., Paladi, A. K., Parthasarathy, A., Pennucci, T. T., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Petrov, P., Pol, N. S., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Prabu, T., Leclere, H. Quelquejay, Radovan, H. A., Rana, P., Ransom, S. M., Ray, P. S., Reardon, D. J., Rogers, A. F., Romano, J. D., Russell, C. J., Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Sardesai, S. C., Schmiedekamp, A., Schmiedekamp, C., Schmitz, K., Schult, L., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Shannon, R. M., Shapiro-Albert, B. J., Siemens, X., Simon, J., Singha, J., Siwek, M. S., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Srivastava, A., Stairs, I. H., Stappers, B. W., Stinebring, D. R., Stovall, K., Sun, J. P., Surnis, M., Susarla, S. C., Susobhanan, A., Swiggum, J. K., Takahashi, K., Tarafdar, P., Taylor, J., Taylor, S. R., Theureau, G., Thrane, E., Thyagarajan, N., Tiburzi, C., Toomey, L., Turner, J. E., Unal, C., Vallisneri, M., van der Wateren, E., van Haasteren, R., Vecchio, A., Krishnan, V. Venkatraman, Verbiest, J. P. W., Vigeland, S. J., Wahl, H. M., Wang, S., Wang, Q., Witt, C. A., Wang, J., Wang, L., Wayt, K. E., Wu, Z., Young, O., Zhang, L., Zhang, S., Zhu, X. -J., and Zic, A.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract

The Australian, Chinese, European, Indian, and North American pulsar timing array (PTA) collaborations recently reported, at varying levels, evidence for the presence of a nanohertz gravitational wave background (GWB). Given that each PTA made different choices in modeling their data, we perform a comparison of the GWB and individual pulsar noise parameters across the results reported from the PTAs that constitute the International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA). We show that despite making different modeling choices, there is no significant difference in the GWB parameters that are measured by the different PTAs, agreeing within $1\sigma$. The pulsar noise parameters are also consistent between different PTAs for the majority of the pulsars included in these analyses. We bridge the differences in modeling choices by adopting a standardized noise model for all pulsars and PTAs, finding that under this model there is a reduction in the tension in the pulsar noise parameters. As part of this reanalysis, we "extended" each PTA's data set by adding extra pulsars that were not timed by that PTA. Under these extensions, we find better constraints on the GWB amplitude and a higher signal-to-noise ratio for the Hellings and Downs correlations. These extensions serve as a prelude to the benefits offered by a full combination of data across all pulsars in the IPTA, i.e., the IPTA's Data Release 3, which will involve not just adding in additional pulsars, but also including data from all three PTAs where any given pulsar is timed by more than as single PTA., Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, submitted to ApJ

Published
2023

4. The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array: VI. Challenging the ultralight dark matter paradigm

Author

Smarra, Clemente, Goncharov, Boris, Barausse, Enrico, Antoniadis, J., Babak, S., Nielsen, A. -S. Bak, Bassa, C. G., Berthereau, A., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Caballero, R. N., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Desvignes, G., Falxa, M., Ferdman, R. D., Franchini, A., Gair, J. R., Graikou, E., Grie, J. -M., Guillemot, L., Guo, Y. J., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jessner, A., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Kramer, M., Krishnakumar, M. A., Lackeos, K., Lee, K. J., Liu, K., Liu, Y., Lyne, A. G., McKee, J. W., Main, R. A., Mickaliger, M. B., Niţu, I. C., Parthasarathy, A., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Leclere, H. Quelquejay, Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Stappers, B. W., Susarla, S. C., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., van der Wateren, E., Vecchio, A., Krishnan, V. Venkatraman, Wang, J., Wang, L., and Wu, Z.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Abstract

Pulsar Timing Array experiments probe the presence of possible scalar or pseudoscalar ultralight dark matter particles through decade-long timing of an ensemble of galactic millisecond radio pulsars. With the second data release of the European Pulsar Timing Array, we focus on the most robust scenario, in which dark matter interacts only gravitationally with ordinary baryonic matter. Our results show that ultralight particles with masses $10^{-24.0}~\text{eV} \lesssim m \lesssim 10^{-23.3}~\text{eV}$ cannot constitute $100\%$ of the measured local dark matter density, but can have at most local density $\rho\lesssim 0.3$ GeV/cm$^3$., Comment: 5 pages + acknowledgements + refs, 2 figures. Text and figures match the version published in PRL

Published
2023
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5. The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array: IV. Implications for massive black holes, dark matter and the early Universe

Author

Antoniadis, J., Arumugam, P., Arumugam, S., Auclair, P., Babak, S., Bagchi, M., Nielsen, A. -S. Bak, Barausse, E., Bassa, C. G., Bathula, A., Berthereau, A., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Caballero, R. N., Caprini, C., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Crisostomi, M., Dandapat, S., Deb, D., Desai, S., Desvignes, G., Dhanda-Batra, N., Dwivedi, C., Falxa, M., Fastidio, F., Ferdman, R. D., Franchini, A., Gair, J. R., Goncharov, B., Gopakumar, A., Graikou, E., Grießmeier, J. -M., Gualandris, A., Guillemot, L., Guo, Y. J., Gupta, Y., Hisano, S., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jessner, A., Joshi, B. C., Kareem, F., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Kharbanda, D., Khizriev, T., Kikunaga, T., Kolhe, N., Kramer, M., Krishnakumar, M. A., Lackeos, K., Lee, K. J., Liu, K., Liu, Y., Lyne, A. G., McKee, J. W., Maan, Y., Main, R. A., Mickaliger, M. B., Middleton, H., Neronov, A., Nitu, I. C., Nobleson, K., Paladi, A. K., Parthasarathy, A., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Prabu, T., Postnov, K., Leclere, H. Quelquejay, Rana, P., Pol, A. Roper, Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Semikoz, D., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Singha, J., Smarra, C., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Srivastava, A., Stappers, B. W., Steer, D. A., Surnis, M., Susarla, S. C., Susobhanan, A., Takahashi, K., Tarafdar, P., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., Truant, R. J., van der Wateren, E., Valtolina, S., Vecchio, A., Krishnan, V. Venkatraman, Verbiest, J. P. W., Wang, J., Wang, L., and Wu, Z.

Subjects
Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract

The European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) and Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA) collaborations have measured a low-frequency common signal in the combination of their second and first data releases respectively, with the correlation properties of a gravitational wave background (GWB). Such signal may have its origin in a number of physical processes including a cosmic population of inspiralling supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs); inflation, phase transitions, cosmic strings and tensor mode generation by non-linear evolution of scalar perturbations in the early Universe; oscillations of the Galactic potential in the presence of ultra-light dark matter (ULDM). At the current stage of emerging evidence, it is impossible to discriminate among the different origins. Therefore, in this paper, we consider each process separately, and investigate the implications of the signal under the hypothesis that it is generated by that specific process. We find that the signal is consistent with a cosmic population of inspiralling SMBHBs, and its relatively high amplitude can be used to place constraints on binary merger timescales and the SMBH-host galaxy scaling relations. If this origin is confirmed, this is the first direct evidence that SMBHBs merge in nature, adding an important observational piece to the puzzle of structure formation and galaxy evolution. As for early Universe processes, the measurement would place tight constraints on the cosmic string tension and on the level of turbulence developed by first-order phase transitions. Other processes would require non-standard scenarios, such as a blue-tilted inflationary spectrum or an excess in the primordial spectrum of scalar perturbations at large wavenumbers. Finally, a ULDM origin of the detected signal is disfavoured, which leads to direct constraints on the abundance of ULDM in our Galaxy., Comment: 30 pages, 23 figures, replaced to match the version published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, note the change in the numbering order in the series (now paper IV)

Published
2023

6. The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array V. Search for continuous gravitational wave signals

Author

Antoniadis, J., Arumugam, P., Arumugam, S., Babak, S., Bagchi, M., Nielsen, A. S. Bak, Bassa, C. G., Bathula, A., Berthereau, A., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Caballero, R. N., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Dandapat, S., Deb, D., Desai, S., Desvignes, G., Dhanda-Batra, N., Dwivedi, C., Falxa, M., Ferranti, I., Ferdman, R. D., Franchini, A., Gair, J. R., Goncharov, B., Gopakumar, A., Graikou, E., Grießmeier, J. M., Guillemot, L., Guo, Y. J., Gupta, Y., Hisano, S., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jessner, A., Joshi, B. C., Kareem, F., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Kharbanda, D., Kikunaga, T., Kolhe, N., Kramer, M., Krishnakumar, M. A., Lackeos, K., Lee, K. J., Liu, K., Liu, Y., Lyne, A. G., McKee, J. W., Maan, Y., Main, R. A., Manzini, S., Mickaliger, M. B., Nitu, I. C., Nobleson, K., Paladi, A. K., Parthasarathy, A., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Prabu, T., Leclere, H. Quelquejay, Rana, P., Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Singha, J., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Srivastava, A., Stappers, B. W., Surnis, M., Susarla, S. C., Susobhanan, A., Takahashi, K., Tarafdar, P., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., van der Wateren, E., Vecchio, A., Krishnan, V. Venkatraman, Verbiest, J. P. W., Wang, J., Wang, L., and Wu, Z.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract

We present the results of a search for continuous gravitational wave signals (CGWs) in the second data release (DR2) of the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) collaboration. The most significant candidate event from this search has a gravitational wave frequency of 4-5 nHz. Such a signal could be generated by a supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) in the local Universe. We present the results of a follow-up analysis of this candidate using both Bayesian and frequentist methods. The Bayesian analysis gives a Bayes factor of 4 in favor of the presence of the CGW over a common uncorrelated noise process, while the frequentist analysis estimates the p-value of the candidate to be 1%, also assuming the presence of common uncorrelated red noise. However, comparing a model that includes both a CGW and a gravitational wave background (GWB) to a GWB only, the Bayes factor in favour of the CGW model is only 0.7. Therefore, we cannot conclusively determine the origin of the observed feature, but we cannot rule it out as a CGW source. We present results of simulations that demonstrate that data containing a weak gravitational wave background can be misinterpreted as data including a CGW and vice versa, providing two plausible explanations of the EPTA DR2 data. Further investigations combining data from all PTA collaborations will be needed to reveal the true origin of this feature., Comment: 13 figures, 15 pages, accepted

Published
2023
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7. The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array II. Customised pulsar noise models for spatially correlated gravitational waves

Author

Antoniadis, J., Arumugam, P., Arumugam, S., Babak, S., Bagchi, M., Nielsen, A. S. Bak, Bassa, C. G., Bathula, A., Berthereau, A., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Caballero, R. N., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Dandapat, S., Deb, D., Desai, S., Desvignes, G., Dhanda-Batra, N., Dwivedi, C., Falxa, M., Ferdman, R. D., Franchini, A., Gair, J. R., Goncharov, B., Gopakumar, A., Graikou, E., Grießmeier, J. -M., Guillemot, L., Guo, Y. J., Gupta, Y., Hisano, S., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jessner, A., Joshi, B. C., Kareem, F., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Kharbanda, D., Kikunaga, T., Kolhe, N., Kramer, M., Krishnakumar, M. A., Lackeos, K., Lee, K. J., Liu, K., Liu, Y., Lyne, A. G., McKee, J. W., Maan, Y., Main, R. A., Mickaliger, M. B., Niţu, I. C., Nobleson, K., Paladi, A. K., Parthasarathy, A., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Prabu, T., Leclere, H. Quelquejay, Rana, P., Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Singha, J., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Srivastava, A., Stappers, B. W., Surnis, M., Susarla, S. C., Susobhanan, A., Takahashi, K., Tarafdar, P., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., van der Wateren, E., Vecchio, A., Krishnan, V. Venkatraman, Verbiest, J. P. W., Wang, J., Wang, L., and Wu, Z.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract

The nanohertz gravitational wave background (GWB) is expected to be an aggregate signal of an ensemble of gravitational waves emitted predominantly by a large population of coalescing supermassive black hole binaries in the centres of merging galaxies. Pulsar timing arrays, ensembles of extremely stable pulsars, are the most precise experiments capable of detecting this background. However, the subtle imprints that the GWB induces on pulsar timing data are obscured by many sources of noise. These must be carefully characterized to increase the sensitivity to the GWB. In this paper, we present a novel technique to estimate the optimal number of frequency coefficients for modelling achromatic and chromatic noise and perform model selection. We also incorporate a new model to fit for scattering variations in the pulsar timing package temponest and created realistic simulations of the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) datasets that allowed us to test the efficacy of our noise modelling algorithms. We present an in-depth analysis of the noise properties of 25 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) that form the second data release (DR2) of the EPTA and investigate the effect of incorporating low-frequency data from the Indian PTA collaboration. We use enterprise and temponest packages to compare noise models with those reported with the EPTA DR1. We find that, while in some pulsars we can successfully disentangle chromatic from achromatic noise owing to the wider frequency coverage in DR2, in others the noise models evolve in a more complicated way. We also find evidence of long-term scattering variations in PSR J1600$-$3053. Through our simulations, we identify intrinsic biases in our current noise analysis techniques and discuss their effect on GWB searches. The results presented here directly help improve sensitivity to the GWB and are already being used as part of global PTA efforts., Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, 9 tables

Published
2023
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8. The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array I. The dataset and timing analysis

Author

Antoniadis, J., Babak, S., Nielsen, A. -S. Bak, Bassa, C. G., Berthereau, A., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Caballero, R. N., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Desvignes, G., Falxa, M., Ferdman, R. D., Franchini, A., Gair, J. R., Goncharov, B., Graikou, E., Grießmeier, J. -M., Guillemot, L., Guo, Y. J., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jessner, A., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Kramer, M., Krishnakumar, M. A., Lackeos, K., Lee, K. J., Liu, K., Liu, Y., Lyne, A. G., McKee, J. W., Main, R. A., Mickaliger, M. B., Nitu, I. C., Parthasarathy, A., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Samajdar, H. Quelquejay Leclere A., Sanidas, S. A., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Stappers, B. W., Susarla, S. C., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., van der Wateren, E., Vecchio, A., Krishnan, V. Venkatraman, Verbiest, J. P. W., Wang, J., Wang, L., and Wu, Z.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract

Pulsar timing arrays offer a probe of the low-frequency gravitational wave spectrum (1 - 100 nanohertz), which is intimately connected to a number of markers that can uniquely trace the formation and evolution of the Universe. We present the dataset and the results of the timing analysis from the second data release of the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA). The dataset contains high-precision pulsar timing data from 25 millisecond pulsars collected with the five largest radio telescopes in Europe, as well as the Large European Array for Pulsars. The dataset forms the foundation for the search for gravitational waves by the EPTA, presented in associated papers. We describe the dataset and present the results of the frequentist and Bayesian pulsar timing analysis for individual millisecond pulsars that have been observed over the last ~25 years. We discuss the improvements to the individual pulsar parameter estimates, as well as new measurements of the physical properties of these pulsars and their companions. This data release extends the dataset from EPTA Data Release 1 up to the beginning of 2021, with individual pulsar datasets with timespans ranging from 14 to 25 years. These lead to improved constraints on annual parallaxes, secular variation of the orbital period, and Shapiro delay for a number of sources. Based on these results, we derived astrophysical parameters that include distances, transverse velocities, binary pulsar masses, and annual orbital parallaxes., Comment: 29 pages, 9 figures, 13 tables, Astronomy & Astrophysics in press

Published
2023
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9. The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array III. Search for gravitational wave signals

Author

Antoniadis, J., Arumugam, P., Arumugam, S., Babak, S., Bagchi, M., Nielsen, A. -S. Bak, Bassa, C. G., Bathula, A., Berthereau, A., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Caballero, R. N., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Dandapat, S., Deb, D., Desai, S., Desvignes, G., Dhanda-Batra, N., Dwivedi, C., Falxa, M., Ferdman, R. D., Franchini, A., Gair, J. R., Goncharov, B., Gopakumar, A., Graikou, E., Grießmeier, J. -M., Guillemot, L., Guo, Y. J., Gupta, Y., Hisano, S., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jessner, A., Joshi, B. C., Kareem, F., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Kharbanda, D., Kikunaga, T., Kolhe, N., Kramer, M., Krishnakumar, M. A., Lackeos, K., Lee, K. J., Liu, K., Liu, Y., Lyne, A. G., McKee, J. W., Maan, Y., Main, R. A., Mickaliger, M. B., Nitu, I. C., Nobleson, K., Paladi, A. K., Parthasarathy, A., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Prabu, T., Leclere, H. Quelquejay, Rana, P., Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Singha, J., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Srivastava, A., Stappers, B. W., Surnis, M., Susarla, S. C., Susobhanan, A., Takahashi, K., Tarafdar, P., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., van der Wateren, E., Vecchio, A., Krishnan, V. Venkatraman, Verbiest, J. P. W., Wang, J., Wang, L., and Wu, Z.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies
Abstract

We present the results of the search for an isotropic stochastic gravitational wave background (GWB) at nanohertz frequencies using the second data release of the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) for 25 millisecond pulsars and a combination with the first data release of the Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA). We analysed (i) the full 24.7-year EPTA data set, (ii) its 10.3-year subset based on modern observing systems, (iii) the combination of the full data set with the first data release of the InPTA for ten commonly timed millisecond pulsars, and (iv) the combination of the 10.3-year subset with the InPTA data. These combinations allowed us to probe the contributions of instrumental noise and interstellar propagation effects. With the full data set, we find marginal evidence for a GWB, with a Bayes factor of four and a false alarm probability of $4\%$. With the 10.3-year subset, we report evidence for a GWB, with a Bayes factor of $60$ and a false alarm probability of about $0.1\%$ ($\gtrsim 3\sigma$ significance). The addition of the InPTA data yields results that are broadly consistent with the EPTA-only data sets, with the benefit of better noise modelling. Analyses were performed with different data processing pipelines to test the consistency of the results from independent software packages. The inferred spectrum from the latest EPTA data from new generation observing systems is rather uncertain and in mild tension with the common signal measured in the full data set. However, if the spectral index is fixed at 13/3, the two data sets give a similar amplitude of ($2.5\pm0.7)\times10^{-15}$ at a reference frequency of $1\,{\rm yr}^{-1}$. By continuing our detection efforts as part of the International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA), we expect to be able to improve the measurement of spatial correlations and better characterise this signal in the coming years., Comment: 21 pages, 14 figures, 4 appendix figures, accepted for publication in A&A

Published
2023
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10. Practical approaches to analyzing PTA data: Cosmic strings with six pulsars

Author

Leclere, Hippolyte Quelquejay, Auclair, Pierre, Babak, Stanislav, Chalumeau, Aurélien, Steer, Danièle A., Antoniadis, J., Nielsen, A. -S. Bak, Bassa, C. G., Berthereau, A., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Caballero, R. N., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Desvignes, G., Falxa, M., Ferdman, R. D., Franchini, A., Gair, J. R., Goncharov, B., Graikou, E., Grießmeier, J. -M., Guillemot, L., Guo, Y. J., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jessner, A., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Kramer, M., Krishnakumar, M. A., Lackeos, K., Lee, K. J., Liu, K., Liu, Y., Lyne, A. G., McKee, J. W., Main, R. A., Mickaliger, M. B., Niţu, I. C., Parthasarathy, A., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Stappers, B. W., Susarla, S. C., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., van der Wateren, E., Vecchio, A., Krishnan, V. Venkatraman, Verbiest, J. P. W., Wang, J., Wang, L., and Wu, Z.

Subjects
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics, High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract

We search for a stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) generated by a network of cosmic strings using six millisecond pulsars from Data Release 2 (DR2) of the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA). We perform a Bayesian analysis considering two models for the network of cosmic string loops, and compare it to a simple power-law model which is expected from the population of supermassive black hole binaries. Our main strong assumption is that the previously reported common red noise process is a SGWB. We find that the one-parameter cosmic string model is slightly favored over a power-law model thanks to its simplicity. If we assume a two-component stochastic signal in the data (supermassive black hole binary population and the signal from cosmic strings), we get a $95\%$ upper limit on the string tension of $\log_{10}(G\mu) < -9.9$ ($-10.5$) for the two cosmic string models we consider. In extended two-parameter string models, we were unable to constrain the number of kinks. We test two approximate and fast Bayesian data analysis methods against the most rigorous analysis and find consistent results. These two fast and efficient methods are applicable to all SGWBs, independent of their source, and will be crucial for analysis of extended data sets., Comment: 14 pages, 6 figures; typo corrected in (5)

Published
2023
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11. The LOFAR Tied-Array All-Sky Survey: Timing of 35 radio pulsars and an overview of the properties of the LOFAR pulsar discoveries

Author

van der Wateren, E., Bassa, C. G., Cooper, S., Grießmeier, J. -M., Stappers, B. W., Hessels, J. W. T., Kondratiev, V. I., Michilli, D., Tan, C. M., Tiburzi, C., Weltevrede, P., Nielsen, A. -S. Bak, Carozzi, T. D., Ciardi, B., Cognard, I., Dettmar, R. -J., Karastergiou, A., Kramer, M., Künsemöller, J., Osłowski, S., Serylak, M., Vocks, C., and Wucknitz, O.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract

The LOFAR Tied-Array All-Sky Survey (LOTAAS) is the most sensitive untargeted radio pulsar survey performed at low radio frequencies (119--151\,MHz) to date and has discovered 76 new radio pulsars, among which the 23.5-s pulsar J0250+5854, up until recently the slowest-spinning radio pulsar known. Here, we report on the timing solutions of 35 pulsars discovered by LOTAAS, which include a nulling pulsar and a mildly recycled pulsar, and thereby complete the full timing analysis of the LOTAAS pulsar discoveries. We give an overview of the findings from the full LOTAAS sample of 76 pulsars, discussing their pulse profiles, radio spectra and timing parameters. We found that the pulse profiles of some of the pulsars show profile variations in time or frequency and while some pulsars show signs of scattering, a large majority display no pulse broadening. The LOTAAS discoveries have on average steeper radio spectra and have longer spin periods ($1.4\times$) as well as lower spin-down rates ($3.1\times$) compared to the known pulsar population. We discuss the cause of these differences, and attribute them to a combination of selection effects of the LOTAAS survey as well as previous pulsar surveys, though can not rule out that older pulsars tend to have steeper radio spectra., Comment: Accepted to Astronomy & Astrophysics

Published
2022
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12. Robust parameter estimation from pulsar timing data

Author

Samajdar, A., Shaifullah, G., Sesana, A., Antoniadis, J., Burgay, M., Champion, D. J., Chen, S., Kramer, M., McKee, J. W., Mickaliger, M. B., and Van der Wateren, E.

Subjects
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract

Recently, global pulsar timing arrays have released results from searching for a nano-Hertz gravitational wave background signal. Although there has not been any definite evidence of the presence of such a signal in residuals of pulsar timing data yet, with more and improved data in future, a statistically significant detection is expected to be made. Stochastic algorithms are used to sample a very large parameter space to infer results from data. In this paper, we attempt to rule out effects arising from the stochasticity of the sampler in the inference process. We compare different configurations of nested samplers and the more commonly used markov chain monte carlo method to sample the pulsar timing array parameter space and account for times taken by the different samplers on same data. Although we obtain consistent results on parameters from different sampling algorithms, we propose two different samplers for robustness checks on data in the future to account for cross-checks between sampling methods as well as realistic run-times., Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables

Published
2022
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13. Irradiated but not eclipsed, the case of PSR J0610-2100

Author

van der Wateren, E., Bassa, C. G., Clark, C. J., Breton, R. P., Cognard, I., Guillemot, L., Janssen, G. H., Lyne, A. G., Stappers, B. W., and Theureau, G.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract

We report on radio timing observations of the black widow binary pulsar J0610$-$2100 and optical observations of its binary companion. The radio timing observations extend the timing baseline to 16yr and reveal a marginal detection of the orbital period derivative, but they show no significant evidence of orbital variations such as those seen in other black widow pulsars. Furthermore, no eclipses are seen in the observations at observing frequencies ranging from 310 to 2700MHz. The optical VRI light curves were modulated with the orbital period, reaching maximum brightness of $V=26.8$, $R=25.4$, and $I=23.8$ at superior conjunction of the companion, confirming irradiation of the companion by the pulsar. Modelling the light curves indicates that the companion is likely not filling its Roche lobe, while having a moderate inclination ($i > 54\degr$). We find an unusually low temperature and a low irradiation for the irradiated hemisphere of the companion. We investigate the absence of radio eclipses in PSR J0610-2100 and in other black widow systems in relation to their binary, pulsar, and companion properties. We also discuss the suitability of PSR J0610-2100 for pulsar timing array observations aimed at detecting nano-Hertz gravitational waves., Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication by A&A

Published
2022
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14. The International Pulsar Timing Array second data release: Search for an isotropic Gravitational Wave Background

Author

Antoniadis, J., Arzoumanian, Z., Babak, S., Bailes, M., Nielsen, A. -S. Bak, Baker, P. T., Bassa, C. G., Becsy, B., Berthereau, A., Bonetti, M., Brazier, A., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Burke-Spolaor, S., Caballero, R. N., Casey-Clyde, J. A., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Charisi, M., Chatterjee, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Cordes, J. M., Cornish, N. J., Crawford, F., Cromartie, H. T., Crowter, K., Dai, S., DeCesar, M. E., Demorest, P. B., Desvignes, G., Dolch, T., Drachler, B., Falxa, M., Ferrara, E. C., Fiore, W., Fonseca, E., Gair, J. R., Garver-Daniels, N., Goncharov, B., Good, D. C., Graikou, E., Guillemot, L., Guo, Y. J., Hazboun, J. S., Hobbs, G., Hu, H., Islo, K., Janssen, G. H., Jennings, R. J., Johnson, A. D., Jones, M. L., Kaiser, A. R., Kaplan, D. L., Karuppusamy, R., Keith, M. J., Kelley, L. Z., Kerr, M., Key, J. S., Kramer, M., Lam, M. T., Lamb, W. G., Lazio, T. J. W., Lee, K. J., Lentati, L., Liu, K., Luo, J., Lynch, R. S., Lyne, A. G., Madison, D. R., Main, R. A., Manchester, R. N., McEwen, A., McKee, J. W., McLaughlin, M. A., Mickaliger, M. B., Mingarelli, C. M. F., Ng, C., Nice, D. J., lowski, S. Os, Parthasarathy, A., Pennucci, T. T., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Pol, N. S., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Ransom, S. M., Ray, P. S., Reardon, D. J., Russell, C. J., Samajdar, A., Sampson, L. M., Sanidas, S., Sarkissian, J. M., Schmitz, K., Schult, L., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Shannon, R. M., Shapiro-Albert, B. J., Siemens, X., Simon, J., Smith, T. L., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Stairs, I. H., Stappers, B. W., Stinebring, D. R., Swiggum, J. K., Taylor, S. R., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., Vallisneri, M., van der Wateren, E., Vecchio, A., Verbiest, J. P. W., Vigeland, S. J., Wahl, H., Wang, J. B., Wang, J., Wang, L., Witt, C. A., Zhang, S., and Zhu, X. J.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract

We searched for an isotropic stochastic gravitational wave background in the second data release of the International Pulsar Timing Array, a global collaboration synthesizing decadal-length pulsar-timing campaigns in North America, Europe, and Australia. In our reference search for a power law strain spectrum of the form $h_c = A(f/1\,\mathrm{yr}^{-1})^{\alpha}$, we found strong evidence for a spectrally-similar low-frequency stochastic process of amplitude $A = 3.8^{+6.3}_{-2.5}\times10^{-15}$ and spectral index $\alpha = -0.5 \pm 0.5$, where the uncertainties represent 95\% credible regions, using information from the auto- and cross-correlation terms between the pulsars in the array. For a spectral index of $\alpha = -2/3$, as expected from a population of inspiralling supermassive black hole binaries, the recovered amplitude is $A = 2.8^{+1.2}_{-0.8}\times10^{-15}$. Nonetheless, no significant evidence of the Hellings-Downs correlations that would indicate a gravitational-wave origin was found. We also analyzed the constituent data from the individual pulsar timing arrays in a consistent way, and clearly demonstrate that the combined international data set is more sensitive. Furthermore, we demonstrate that this combined data set produces comparable constraints to recent single-array data sets which have more data than the constituent parts of the combination. Future international data releases will deliver increased sensitivity to gravitational wave radiation, and significantly increase the detection probability., Comment: 17 pages, 12 figures, accepted in MNRAS

Published
2022
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15. Noise analysis in the European Pulsar Timing Array data release 2 and its implications on the gravitational-wave background search

Author

Chalumeau, A., Babak, S., Petiteau, A., Chen, S., Samajdar, A., Caballero, R. N., Theureau, G., Guillemot, L., Desvignes, G., Parthasarathy, A., Liu, K., Shaifullah, G., Hu, H., van der Wateren, E., Antoniadis, J., Nielsen, A. -S. Bak, Bassa, C. G., Berthereau, A., Burgay, M., Champion, D. J., Cognard, I., Falxa, M., Ferdman, R. D., Freire, P. C. C., Gair, J. R., Graikou, E., Guo, Y. J., Jang, J., Janssen, G. H., Karuppusamy, R., Keith, M. J., Kramer, M., Lee, K. J., Liu, X. J., Lyne, A. G., Main, R. A., McKee, J. W., Mickaliger, M. B., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Sanidas, S. A., Sesana, A., Speri, L., Stappers, B. W., Tiburzi, C., Vecchio, A., Verbiest, J. P. W., Wang, J., Wang, L., and Xu, H.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
Abstract

The European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) collaboration has recently released an extended data set for six pulsars (DR2) and reported evidence for a common red noise signal. Here we present a noise analysis for each of the six pulsars. We consider several types of noise: (i) radio frequency independent, "achromatic", and time-correlated red noise; (ii) variations of dispersion measure and scattering; (iii) system and band noise; and (iv) deterministic signals (other than gravitational waves) that could be present in the PTA data. We perform Bayesian model selection to find the optimal combination of noise components for each pulsar. Using these custom models we revisit the presence of the common uncorrelated red noise signal previously reported in the EPTA DR2 and show that the data still supports it with a high statistical significance. Next, we confirm that there is no preference for or against the Hellings-Downs spatial correlations expected for the stochastic gravitational-wave background. The main conclusion of the EPTA DR2 paper remains unchanged despite a very significant change in the noise model of each pulsar. However, modelling the noise is essential for the robust detection of gravitational waves and its impact could be significant when analysing the next EPTA data release, which will include a larger number of pulsars and more precise measurements., Comment: 21 pages, 11 figures, 7 tables, 1 appendix figure and 1 appendix table, accepted for publication to MNRAS

Published
2021
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16. Common-red-signal analysis with 24-yr high-precision timing of the European Pulsar Timing Array: Inferences in the stochastic gravitational-wave background search

Author

Chen, S., Caballero, R. N., Guo, Y. J., Chalumeau, A., Liu, K., Shaifullah, G., Lee, K. J., Babak, S., Desvignes, G., Parthasarathy, A., Hu, H., van der Wateren, E., Antoniadis, J., Nielsen, A. -S. Bak, Bassa, C. G., Berthereau, A., Burgay, M., Champion, D. J., Cognard, I., Falxa, M., Ferdman, R. D., Freire, P. C. C., Gair, J. R., Graikou, E., Guillemot, L., Jang, J., Janssen, G. H., Karuppusamy, R., Keith, M. J., Kramer, M., Liu, X. J., Lyne, A. G., Main, R. A., McKee, J. W., Mickaliger, M. B., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Sesana, A., Speri, L., Stappers, B. W., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., Vecchio, A., Verbiest, J. P. W., Wang, J., Wang, L., and Xu, H.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract

We present results from the search for a stochastic gravitational-wave background (GWB) as predicted by the theory of General Relativity using six radio millisecond pulsars from the Data Release 2 (DR2) of the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) covering a timespan up to 24 years. A GWB manifests itself as a long-term low-frequency stochastic signal common to all pulsars, a common red signal (CRS), with the characteristic Hellings-Downs (HD) spatial correlation. Our analysis is performed with two independent pipelines, \eprise{} and \tn{}+\ftwo{}, which produce consistent results. A search for a CRS with simultaneous estimation of its spatial correlations yields spectral properties compatible with theoretical GWB predictions, but does not result in the required measurement of the HD correlation, as required for GWB detection. Further Bayesian model comparison between different types of CRSs, including a GWB, finds the most favoured model to be the common uncorrelated red noise described by a power-law with $A = 5.13_{-2.73}^{+4.20} \times 10^{-15}$ and $\gamma = 3.78_{-0.59}^{+0.69}$ (95\% credible regions). Fixing the spectral index to $\gamma=13/3$ as expected from the GWB by circular, inspiralling supermassive black-hole binaries results in an amplitude of $A =2.95_{-0.72}^{+0.89} \times 10^{-15}$. We implement three different models, BAYESEPHEM, LINIMOSS and EPHEMGP, to address possible Solar-system ephemeris (SSE) systematics and conclude that our results may only marginally depend on these effects. This work builds on the methods and models from the studies on the EPTA DR1. We show that under the same analysis framework the results remain consistent after the data set extension., Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures, 7 tables, 2 appendix tables and 1 appendix figure

Published
2021
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17. The impact of Solar wind variability on pulsar timing

Author

Tiburzi, C., Shaifullah, G. M., Bassa, C. G., Zucca, P., Verbiest, J. P. W., Porayko, N. K., van der Wateren, E., Fallows, R. A., Main, R. A., Janssen, G. H., Anderson, J. M., Nielsen, A-. S. Bak, Donner, J. Y., Keane, E. F., Künsemöller, J., Osłowski, S., Grießmeier, J-. M., Serylak, M., Brüggen, M., Ciardi, B., Dettmar, R. -J., Hoeft, M., Kramer, M., Mann, G., and Vocks, C.

Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
Abstract

High-precision pulsar timing requires accurate corrections for dispersive delays of radio waves, parametrized by the dispersion measure (DM), particularly if these delays are variable in time. In a previous paper we studied the Solar-wind (SW) models used in pulsar timing to mitigate the excess of DM annually induced by the SW, and found these to be insufficient for high-precision pulsar timing. Here we analyze additional pulsar datasets to further investigate which aspects of the SW models currently used in pulsar timing can be readily improved, and at what levels of timing precision SW mitigation is possible. Our goals are to verify: a) whether the data are better described by a spherical model of the SW with a time-variable amplitude rather than a time-invariant one as suggested in literature, b) whether a temporal trend of such a model's amplitudes can be detected. We use the pulsar-timing technique on low-frequency pulsar observations to estimate the DM and quantify how this value changes as the Earth moves around the Sun. Specifically, we monitor the DM in weekly to monthly observations of 14 pulsars taken with LOFAR across time spans of up to 6 years. We develop an informed algorithm to separate the interstellar variations in DM from those caused by the SW and demonstrate the functionality of this algorithm with extensive simulations. Assuming a spherically symmetric model for the SW density, we derive the amplitude of this model for each year of observations. We show that a spherical model with time-variable amplitude models the observations better than a spherical model with constant amplitude, but that both approaches leave significant SW induced delays uncorrected in a number of pulsars in the sample. The amplitude of the spherical model is found to be variable in time, as opposed to what has been previously suggested., Comment: 14 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics

Published
2020
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18. The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array: IV. Implications for massive black holes, dark matter, and the early Universe

Author

Antoniadis, J, Arumugam, P, Arumugam, S, Babak, S, Bagchi, M, Bak Nielsen, A, Bassa, C, Bathula, A, Berthereau, A, Bonetti, M, Bortolas, E, Brook, P, Burgay, M, Caballero, R, Chalumeau, A, Champion, D, Chanlaridis, S, Chen, S, Cognard, I, Dandapat, S, Deb, D, Desai, S, Desvignes, G, Dhanda-Batra, N, Dwivedi, C, Falxa, M, Ferdman, R, Franchini, A, Gair, J, Goncharov, B, Gopakumar, A, Graikou, E, Grießmeier, J, Gualandris, A, Guillemot, L, Guo, Y, Gupta, Y, Hisano, S, Hu, H, Iraci, F, Izquierdo Villalba, D, Jang, J, Jawor, J, Janssen, G, Jessner, A, Joshi, B, Kareem, F, Karuppusamy, R, Keane, E, Keith, M, Kharbanda, D, Kikunaga, T, Kolhe, N, Kramer, M, Krishnakumar, M, Lackeos, K, Lee, K, Liu, K, Liu, Y, Lyne, A, Mckee, J, Maan, Y, Main, R, Mickaliger, M, Niţu, I, Nobleson, K, Paladi, A, Parthasarathy, A, Perera, B, Perrodin, D, Petiteau, A, Porayko, N, Possenti, A, Prabu, T, Quelquejay Leclere, H, Rana, P, Samajdar, A, Sanidas, S, Sesana, A, Shaifullah, G, Singha, J, Speri, L, Spiewak, R, Srivastava, A, Stappers, B, Surnis, M, Susarla, S, Susobhanan, A, Takahashi, K, Tarafdar, P, Theureau, G, Tiburzi, C, Van Der Wateren, E, Vecchio, A, Venkatraman Krishnan, V, Verbiest, J, Wang, J, Wang, L, Wu, Z, Auclair, P, Antoniadis J., Arumugam P., Arumugam S., Babak S., Bagchi M., Bak Nielsen A. S., Bassa C. G., Bathula A., Berthereau A., Bonetti M., Bortolas E., Brook P. R., Burgay M., Caballero R. N., Chalumeau A., Champion D. J., Chanlaridis S., Chen S., Cognard I., Dandapat S., Deb D., Desai S., Desvignes G., Dhanda-Batra N., Dwivedi C., Falxa M., Ferdman R. D., Franchini A., Gair J. R., Goncharov B., Gopakumar A., Graikou E., Grießmeier J. M., Gualandris A., Guillemot L., Guo Y. J., Gupta Y., Hisano S., Hu H., Iraci F., Izquierdo Villalba D., Jang J., Jawor J., Janssen G. H., Jessner A., Joshi B. C., Kareem F., Karuppusamy R., Keane E. F., Keith M. J., Kharbanda D., Kikunaga T., Kolhe N., Kramer M., Krishnakumar M. A., Lackeos K., Lee K. J., Liu K., Liu Y., Lyne A. G., McKee J. W., Maan Y., Main R. A., Mickaliger M. B., Niţu I. C., Nobleson K., Paladi A. K., Parthasarathy A., Perera B. B. P., Perrodin D., Petiteau A., Porayko N. K., Possenti A., Prabu T., Quelquejay Leclere H., Rana P., Samajdar A., Sanidas S. A., Sesana A., Shaifullah G., Singha J., Speri L., Spiewak R., Srivastava A., Stappers B. W., Surnis M., Susarla S. C., Susobhanan A., Takahashi K., Tarafdar P., Theureau G., Tiburzi C., Van Der Wateren E., Vecchio A., Venkatraman Krishnan V., Verbiest J. P. W., Wang J., Wang L., Wu Z., Auclair P., Antoniadis, J, Arumugam, P, Arumugam, S, Babak, S, Bagchi, M, Bak Nielsen, A, Bassa, C, Bathula, A, Berthereau, A, Bonetti, M, Bortolas, E, Brook, P, Burgay, M, Caballero, R, Chalumeau, A, Champion, D, Chanlaridis, S, Chen, S, Cognard, I, Dandapat, S, Deb, D, Desai, S, Desvignes, G, Dhanda-Batra, N, Dwivedi, C, Falxa, M, Ferdman, R, Franchini, A, Gair, J, Goncharov, B, Gopakumar, A, Graikou, E, Grießmeier, J, Gualandris, A, Guillemot, L, Guo, Y, Gupta, Y, Hisano, S, Hu, H, Iraci, F, Izquierdo Villalba, D, Jang, J, Jawor, J, Janssen, G, Jessner, A, Joshi, B, Kareem, F, Karuppusamy, R, Keane, E, Keith, M, Kharbanda, D, Kikunaga, T, Kolhe, N, Kramer, M, Krishnakumar, M, Lackeos, K, Lee, K, Liu, K, Liu, Y, Lyne, A, Mckee, J, Maan, Y, Main, R, Mickaliger, M, Niţu, I, Nobleson, K, Paladi, A, Parthasarathy, A, Perera, B, Perrodin, D, Petiteau, A, Porayko, N, Possenti, A, Prabu, T, Quelquejay Leclere, H, Rana, P, Samajdar, A, Sanidas, S, Sesana, A, Shaifullah, G, Singha, J, Speri, L, Spiewak, R, Srivastava, A, Stappers, B, Surnis, M, Susarla, S, Susobhanan, A, Takahashi, K, Tarafdar, P, Theureau, G, Tiburzi, C, Van Der Wateren, E, Vecchio, A, Venkatraman Krishnan, V, Verbiest, J, Wang, J, Wang, L, Wu, Z, Auclair, P, Antoniadis J., Arumugam P., Arumugam S., Babak S., Bagchi M., Bak Nielsen A. S., Bassa C. G., Bathula A., Berthereau A., Bonetti M., Bortolas E., Brook P. R., Burgay M., Caballero R. N., Chalumeau A., Champion D. J., Chanlaridis S., Chen S., Cognard I., Dandapat S., Deb D., Desai S., Desvignes G., Dhanda-Batra N., Dwivedi C., Falxa M., Ferdman R. D., Franchini A., Gair J. R., Goncharov B., Gopakumar A., Graikou E., Grießmeier J. M., Gualandris A., Guillemot L., Guo Y. J., Gupta Y., Hisano S., Hu H., Iraci F., Izquierdo Villalba D., Jang J., Jawor J., Janssen G. H., Jessner A., Joshi B. C., Kareem F., Karuppusamy R., Keane E. F., Keith M. J., Kharbanda D., Kikunaga T., Kolhe N., Kramer M., Krishnakumar M. A., Lackeos K., Lee K. J., Liu K., Liu Y., Lyne A. G., McKee J. W., Maan Y., Main R. A., Mickaliger M. B., Niţu I. C., Nobleson K., Paladi A. K., Parthasarathy A., Perera B. B. P., Perrodin D., Petiteau A., Porayko N. K., Possenti A., Prabu T., Quelquejay Leclere H., Rana P., Samajdar A., Sanidas S. A., Sesana A., Shaifullah G., Singha J., Speri L., Spiewak R., Srivastava A., Stappers B. W., Surnis M., Susarla S. C., Susobhanan A., Takahashi K., Tarafdar P., Theureau G., Tiburzi C., Van Der Wateren E., Vecchio A., Venkatraman Krishnan V., Verbiest J. P. W., Wang J., Wang L., Wu Z., and Auclair P.

Abstract

The European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) and Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA) collaborations have measured a low-frequency common signal in the combination of their second and first data releases, respectively, with the correlation properties of a gravitational wave background (GWB). Such a signal may have its origin in a number of physical processes including a cosmic population of inspiralling supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs); inflation, phase transitions, cosmic strings, and tensor mode generation by the non-linear evolution of scalar perturbations in the early Universe; and oscillations of the Galactic potential in the presence of ultra-light dark matter (ULDM). At the current stage of emerging evidence, it is impossible to discriminate among the different origins. Therefore, for this paper, we consider each process separately, and investigated the implications of the signal under the hypothesis that it is generated by that specific process. We find that the signal is consistent with a cosmic population of inspiralling SMBHBs, and its relatively high amplitude can be used to place constraints on binary merger timescales and the SMBH-host galaxy scaling relations. If this origin is confirmed, this would be the first direct evidence that SMBHBs merge in nature, adding an important observational piece to the puzzle of structure formation and galaxy evolution. As for early Universe processes, the measurement would place tight constraints on the cosmic string tension and on the level of turbulence developed by first-order phase transitions. Other processes would require non-standard scenarios, such as a blue-tilted inflationary spectrum or an excess in the primordial spectrum of scalar perturbations at large wavenumbers. Finally, a ULDM origin of the detected signal is disfavoured, which leads to direct constraints on the abundance of ULDM in our Galaxy.

Published
2024

19. The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array. III. Search for gravitational wave signals

Author

Antoniadis, J, Arumugam, P, Arumugam, S, Babak, S, Bagchi, M, Bak Nielsen, A, Bassa, C, Bathula, A, Berthereau, A, Bonetti, M, Bortolas, E, Brook, P, Burgay, M, Caballero, R, Chalumeau, A, Champion, D, Chanlaridis, S, Chen, S, Cognard, I, Dandapat, S, Deb, D, Desai, S, Desvignes, G, Dhanda-Batra, N, Dwivedi, C, Falxa, M, Ferdman, R, Franchini, A, Gair, J, Goncharov, B, Gopakumar, A, Graikou, E, Grießmeier, J, Guillemot, L, Guo, Y, Gupta, Y, Hisano, S, Hu, H, Iraci, F, Izquierdo-Villalba, D, Jang, J, Jawor, J, Janssen, G, Jessner, A, Joshi, B, Kareem, F, Karuppusamy, R, Keane, E, Keith, M, Kharbanda, D, Kikunaga, T, Kolhe, N, Kramer, M, Krishnakumar, M, Lackeos, K, Lee, K, Liu, K, Liu, Y, Lyne, A, Mckee, J, Maan, Y, Main, R, Mickaliger, M, Niţu, I, Nobleson, K, Paladi, A, Parthasarathy, A, Perera, B, Perrodin, D, Petiteau, A, Porayko, N, Possenti, A, Prabu, T, Quelquejay Leclere, H, Rana, P, Samajdar, A, Sanidas, S, Sesana, A, Shaifullah, G, Singha, J, Speri, L, Spiewak, R, Srivastava, A, Stappers, B, Surnis, M, Susarla, S, Susobhanan, A, Takahashi, K, Tarafdar, P, Theureau, G, Tiburzi, C, van der Wateren, E, Vecchio, A, Venkatraman Krishnan, V, Verbiest, J, Wang, J, Wang, L, Wu, Z, Antoniadis, J., Arumugam, P., Arumugam, S., Babak, S., Bagchi, M., Bak Nielsen, A. -S., Bassa, C. G., Bathula, A., Berthereau, A., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Caballero, R. N., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Dandapat, S., Deb, D., Desai, S., Desvignes, G., Dhanda-Batra, N., Dwivedi, C., Falxa, M., Ferdman, R. D., Franchini, A., Gair, J. R., Goncharov, B., Gopakumar, A., Graikou, E., Grießmeier, J. -M., Guillemot, L., Guo, Y. J., Gupta, Y., Hisano, S., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jessner, A., Joshi, B. C., Kareem, F., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Kharbanda, D., Kikunaga, T., Kolhe, N., Kramer, M., Krishnakumar, M. A., Lackeos, K., Lee, K. J., Liu, K., Liu, Y., Lyne, A. G., McKee, J. W., Maan, Y., Main, R. A., Mickaliger, M. B., Niţu, I. C., Nobleson, K., Paladi, A. K., Parthasarathy, A., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Prabu, T., Quelquejay Leclere, H., Rana, P., Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Singha, J., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Srivastava, A., Stappers, B. W., Surnis, M., Susarla, S. C., Susobhanan, A., Takahashi, K., Tarafdar, P., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., van der Wateren, E., Vecchio, A., Venkatraman Krishnan, V., Verbiest, J. P. W., Wang, J., Wang, L., Wu, Z., Antoniadis, J, Arumugam, P, Arumugam, S, Babak, S, Bagchi, M, Bak Nielsen, A, Bassa, C, Bathula, A, Berthereau, A, Bonetti, M, Bortolas, E, Brook, P, Burgay, M, Caballero, R, Chalumeau, A, Champion, D, Chanlaridis, S, Chen, S, Cognard, I, Dandapat, S, Deb, D, Desai, S, Desvignes, G, Dhanda-Batra, N, Dwivedi, C, Falxa, M, Ferdman, R, Franchini, A, Gair, J, Goncharov, B, Gopakumar, A, Graikou, E, Grießmeier, J, Guillemot, L, Guo, Y, Gupta, Y, Hisano, S, Hu, H, Iraci, F, Izquierdo-Villalba, D, Jang, J, Jawor, J, Janssen, G, Jessner, A, Joshi, B, Kareem, F, Karuppusamy, R, Keane, E, Keith, M, Kharbanda, D, Kikunaga, T, Kolhe, N, Kramer, M, Krishnakumar, M, Lackeos, K, Lee, K, Liu, K, Liu, Y, Lyne, A, Mckee, J, Maan, Y, Main, R, Mickaliger, M, Niţu, I, Nobleson, K, Paladi, A, Parthasarathy, A, Perera, B, Perrodin, D, Petiteau, A, Porayko, N, Possenti, A, Prabu, T, Quelquejay Leclere, H, Rana, P, Samajdar, A, Sanidas, S, Sesana, A, Shaifullah, G, Singha, J, Speri, L, Spiewak, R, Srivastava, A, Stappers, B, Surnis, M, Susarla, S, Susobhanan, A, Takahashi, K, Tarafdar, P, Theureau, G, Tiburzi, C, van der Wateren, E, Vecchio, A, Venkatraman Krishnan, V, Verbiest, J, Wang, J, Wang, L, Wu, Z, Antoniadis, J., Arumugam, P., Arumugam, S., Babak, S., Bagchi, M., Bak Nielsen, A. -S., Bassa, C. G., Bathula, A., Berthereau, A., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Caballero, R. N., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Dandapat, S., Deb, D., Desai, S., Desvignes, G., Dhanda-Batra, N., Dwivedi, C., Falxa, M., Ferdman, R. D., Franchini, A., Gair, J. R., Goncharov, B., Gopakumar, A., Graikou, E., Grießmeier, J. -M., Guillemot, L., Guo, Y. J., Gupta, Y., Hisano, S., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jessner, A., Joshi, B. C., Kareem, F., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Kharbanda, D., Kikunaga, T., Kolhe, N., Kramer, M., Krishnakumar, M. A., Lackeos, K., Lee, K. J., Liu, K., Liu, Y., Lyne, A. G., McKee, J. W., Maan, Y., Main, R. A., Mickaliger, M. B., Niţu, I. C., Nobleson, K., Paladi, A. K., Parthasarathy, A., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Prabu, T., Quelquejay Leclere, H., Rana, P., Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Singha, J., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Srivastava, A., Stappers, B. W., Surnis, M., Susarla, S. C., Susobhanan, A., Takahashi, K., Tarafdar, P., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., van der Wateren, E., Vecchio, A., Venkatraman Krishnan, V., Verbiest, J. P. W., Wang, J., Wang, L., and Wu, Z.

Abstract

We present the results of the search for an isotropic stochastic gravitational wave background (GWB) at nanohertz frequencies using the second data release of the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) for 25 millisecond pulsars and a combination with the first data release of the Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA). A robust GWB detection is conditioned upon resolving the Hellings-Downs angular pattern in the pairwise cross-correlation of the pulsar timing residuals. Additionally, the GWB is expected to yield the same (common) spectrum of temporal correlations across pulsars, which is used as a null hypothesis in the GWB search. Such a common-spectrum process has already been observed in pulsar timing data. We analysed (i) the full 24.7-year EPTA data set, (ii) its 10.3-year subset based on modern observing systems, (iii) the combination of the full data set with the first data release of the InPTA for ten commonly timed millisecond pulsars, and (iv) the combination of the 10.3-year subset with the InPTA data. These combinations allowed us to probe the contributions of instrumental noise and interstellar propagation effects. With the full data set, we find marginal evidence for a GWB, with a Bayes factor of four and a false alarm probability of 4%. With the 10.3-year subset, we report evidence for a GWB, with a Bayes factor of 60 and a false alarm probability of about 0.1% (3significance). The addition of the InPTA data yields results that are broadly consistent with the EPTA-only data sets, with the benefit of better noise modelling. Analyses were performed with different data processing pipelines to test the consistency of the results from independent software packages. The latest EPTA data from new generation observing systems show non-negligible evidence for the GWB. At the same time, the inferred spectrum is rather uncertain and in mild tension with the common signal measured in the full data set. However, if the spectral index is fixed at 13/3, the two data sets

Published
2023

20. The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array: I. The dataset and timing analysis

Author

Antoniadis, J, Babak, S, Bak Nielsen, A, Bassa, C, Berthereau, A, Bonetti, M, Bortolas, E, Brook, P, Burgay, M, Caballero, R, Chalumeau, A, Champion, D, Chanlaridis, S, Chen, S, Cognard, I, Desvignes, G, Falxa, M, Ferdman, R, Franchini, A, Gair, J, Goncharov, B, Graikou, E, Grieaßmeier, J, Guillemot, L, Guo, Y, Hu, H, Iraci, F, Izquierdo-Villalba, D, Jang, J, Jawor, J, Janssen, G, Jessner, A, Karuppusamy, R, Keane, E, Keith, M, Kramer, M, Krishnakumar, M, Lackeos, K, Lee, K, Liu, K, Liu, Y, Lyne, A, Mckee, J, Main, R, Mickaliger, M, Niţu, I, Parthasarathy, A, Perera, B, Perrodin, D, Petiteau, A, Porayko, N, Possenti, A, Quelquejay Leclere, H, Samajdar, A, Sanidas, S, Sesana, A, Shaifullah, G, Speri, L, Spiewak, R, Stappers, B, Susarla, S, Theureau, G, Tiburzi, C, Van Der Wateren, E, Vecchio, A, Venkatraman Krishnan, V, Verbiest, J, Wang, J, Wang, L, Wu, Z, Antoniadis J., Babak S., Bak Nielsen A. S., Bassa C. G., Berthereau A., Bonetti M., Bortolas E., Brook P. R., Burgay M., Caballero R. N., Chalumeau A., Champion D. J., Chanlaridis S., Chen S., Cognard I., Desvignes G., Falxa M., Ferdman R. D., Franchini A., Gair J. R., Goncharov B., Graikou E., Grieaßmeier J. M., Guillemot L., Guo Y. J., Hu H., Iraci F., Izquierdo-Villalba D., Jang J., Jawor J., Janssen G. H., Jessner A., Karuppusamy R., Keane E. F., Keith M. J., Kramer M., Krishnakumar M. A., Lackeos K., Lee K. J., Liu K., Liu Y., Lyne A. G., McKee J. W., Main R. A., Mickaliger M. B., Niţu I. C., Parthasarathy A., Perera B. B. P., Perrodin D., Petiteau A., Porayko N. K., Possenti A., Quelquejay Leclere H., Samajdar A., Sanidas S. A., Sesana A., Shaifullah G., Speri L., Spiewak R., Stappers B. W., Susarla S. C., Theureau G., Tiburzi C., Van Der Wateren E., Vecchio A., Venkatraman Krishnan V., Verbiest J. P. W., Wang J., Wang L., Wu Z., Antoniadis, J, Babak, S, Bak Nielsen, A, Bassa, C, Berthereau, A, Bonetti, M, Bortolas, E, Brook, P, Burgay, M, Caballero, R, Chalumeau, A, Champion, D, Chanlaridis, S, Chen, S, Cognard, I, Desvignes, G, Falxa, M, Ferdman, R, Franchini, A, Gair, J, Goncharov, B, Graikou, E, Grieaßmeier, J, Guillemot, L, Guo, Y, Hu, H, Iraci, F, Izquierdo-Villalba, D, Jang, J, Jawor, J, Janssen, G, Jessner, A, Karuppusamy, R, Keane, E, Keith, M, Kramer, M, Krishnakumar, M, Lackeos, K, Lee, K, Liu, K, Liu, Y, Lyne, A, Mckee, J, Main, R, Mickaliger, M, Niţu, I, Parthasarathy, A, Perera, B, Perrodin, D, Petiteau, A, Porayko, N, Possenti, A, Quelquejay Leclere, H, Samajdar, A, Sanidas, S, Sesana, A, Shaifullah, G, Speri, L, Spiewak, R, Stappers, B, Susarla, S, Theureau, G, Tiburzi, C, Van Der Wateren, E, Vecchio, A, Venkatraman Krishnan, V, Verbiest, J, Wang, J, Wang, L, Wu, Z, Antoniadis J., Babak S., Bak Nielsen A. S., Bassa C. G., Berthereau A., Bonetti M., Bortolas E., Brook P. R., Burgay M., Caballero R. N., Chalumeau A., Champion D. J., Chanlaridis S., Chen S., Cognard I., Desvignes G., Falxa M., Ferdman R. D., Franchini A., Gair J. R., Goncharov B., Graikou E., Grieaßmeier J. M., Guillemot L., Guo Y. J., Hu H., Iraci F., Izquierdo-Villalba D., Jang J., Jawor J., Janssen G. H., Jessner A., Karuppusamy R., Keane E. F., Keith M. J., Kramer M., Krishnakumar M. A., Lackeos K., Lee K. J., Liu K., Liu Y., Lyne A. G., McKee J. W., Main R. A., Mickaliger M. B., Niţu I. C., Parthasarathy A., Perera B. B. P., Perrodin D., Petiteau A., Porayko N. K., Possenti A., Quelquejay Leclere H., Samajdar A., Sanidas S. A., Sesana A., Shaifullah G., Speri L., Spiewak R., Stappers B. W., Susarla S. C., Theureau G., Tiburzi C., Van Der Wateren E., Vecchio A., Venkatraman Krishnan V., Verbiest J. P. W., Wang J., Wang L., and Wu Z.

Abstract

Pulsar timing arrays offer a probe of the low-frequency gravitational wave spectrum (1"100 nHz), which is intimately connected to a number of markers that can uniquely trace the formation and evolution of the Universe. We present the dataset and the results of the timing analysis from the second data release of the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA). The dataset contains high-precision pulsar timing data from 25 millisecond pulsars collected with the five largest radio telescopes in Europe, as well as the Large European Array for Pulsars. The dataset forms the foundation for the search for gravitational waves by the EPTA, presented in associated papers. We describe the dataset and present the results of the frequentist and Bayesian pulsar timing analysis for individual millisecond pulsars that have been observed over the last ~25 yr. We discuss the improvements to the individual pulsar parameter estimates, as well as new measurements of the physical properties of these pulsars and their companions. This data release extends the dataset from EPTA Data Release 1 up to the beginning of 2021, with individual pulsar datasets with timespans ranging from 14 to 25 yr. These lead to improved constraints on annual parallaxes, secular variation of the orbital period, and Shapiro delay for a number of sources. Based on these results, we derived astrophysical parameters that include distances, transverse velocities, binary pulsar masses, and annual orbital parallaxes.

Published
2023

21. The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array. II. Customised pulsar noise models for spatially correlated gravitational waves

Author

Antoniadis, J, Arumugam, P, Arumugam, S, Babak, S, Bagchi, M, Nielsen, A, Bassa, C, Bathula, A, Berthereau, A, Bonetti, M, Bortolas, E, Brook, P, Burgay, M, Caballero, R, Chalumeau, A, Champion, D, Chanlaridis, S, Chen, S, Cognard, I, Dandapat, S, Deb, D, Desai, S, Desvignes, G, Dhanda-Batra, N, Dwivedi, C, Falxa, M, Ferdman, R, Franchini, A, Gair, J, Goncharov, B, Gopakumar, A, Graikou, E, Grießmeier, J, Guillemot, L, Guo, Y, Gupta, Y, Hisano, S, Hu, H, Iraci, F, Izquierdo-Villalba, D, Jang, J, Jawor, J, Janssen, G, Jessner, A, Joshi, B, Kareem, F, Karuppusamy, R, Keane, E, Keith, M, Kharbanda, D, Kikunaga, T, Kolhe, N, Kramer, M, Krishnakumar, M, Lackeos, K, Lee, K, Liu, K, Liu, Y, Lyne, A, Mckee, J, Maan, Y, Main, R, Mickaliger, M, Niţu, I, Nobleson, K, Paladi, A, Parthasarathy, A, Perera, B, Perrodin, D, Petiteau, A, Porayko, N, Possenti, A, Prabu, T, Leclere, H, Rana, P, Samajdar, A, Sanidas, S, Sesana, A, Shaifullah, G, Singha, J, Speri, L, Spiewak, R, Srivastava, A, Stappers, B, Surnis, M, Susarla, S, Susobhanan, A, Takahashi, K, Tarafdar, P, Theureau, G, Tiburzi, C, van der Wateren, E, Vecchio, A, Krishnan, V, Verbiest, J, Wang, J, Wang, L, Wu, Z, Antoniadis, J., Arumugam, P., Arumugam, S., Babak, S., Bagchi, M., Nielsen, A. -S. Bak, Bassa, C. G., Bathula, A., Berthereau, A., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Caballero, R. N., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Dandapat, S., Deb, D., Desai, S., Desvignes, G., Dhanda-Batra, N., Dwivedi, C., Falxa, M., Ferdman, R. D., Franchini, A., Gair, J. R., Goncharov, B., Gopakumar, A., Graikou, E., Grießmeier, J. -M., Guillemot, L., Guo, Y. J., Gupta, Y., Hisano, S., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jessner, A., Joshi, B. C., Kareem, F., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Kharbanda, D., Kikunaga, T., Kolhe, N., Kramer, M., Krishnakumar, M. A., Lackeos, K., Lee, K. J., Liu, K., Liu, Y., Lyne, A. G., McKee, J. W., Maan, Y., Main, R. A., Mickaliger, M. B., Niţu, I. C., Nobleson, K., Paladi, A. K., Parthasarathy, A., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Prabu, T., Leclere, H. Quelquejay, Rana, P., Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Singha, J., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Srivastava, A., Stappers, B. W., Surnis, M., Susarla, S. C., Susobhanan, A., Takahashi, K., Tarafdar, P., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., van der Wateren, E., Vecchio, A., Krishnan, V. Venkatraman, Verbiest, J. P. W., Wang, J., Wang, L., Wu, Z., Antoniadis, J, Arumugam, P, Arumugam, S, Babak, S, Bagchi, M, Nielsen, A, Bassa, C, Bathula, A, Berthereau, A, Bonetti, M, Bortolas, E, Brook, P, Burgay, M, Caballero, R, Chalumeau, A, Champion, D, Chanlaridis, S, Chen, S, Cognard, I, Dandapat, S, Deb, D, Desai, S, Desvignes, G, Dhanda-Batra, N, Dwivedi, C, Falxa, M, Ferdman, R, Franchini, A, Gair, J, Goncharov, B, Gopakumar, A, Graikou, E, Grießmeier, J, Guillemot, L, Guo, Y, Gupta, Y, Hisano, S, Hu, H, Iraci, F, Izquierdo-Villalba, D, Jang, J, Jawor, J, Janssen, G, Jessner, A, Joshi, B, Kareem, F, Karuppusamy, R, Keane, E, Keith, M, Kharbanda, D, Kikunaga, T, Kolhe, N, Kramer, M, Krishnakumar, M, Lackeos, K, Lee, K, Liu, K, Liu, Y, Lyne, A, Mckee, J, Maan, Y, Main, R, Mickaliger, M, Niţu, I, Nobleson, K, Paladi, A, Parthasarathy, A, Perera, B, Perrodin, D, Petiteau, A, Porayko, N, Possenti, A, Prabu, T, Leclere, H, Rana, P, Samajdar, A, Sanidas, S, Sesana, A, Shaifullah, G, Singha, J, Speri, L, Spiewak, R, Srivastava, A, Stappers, B, Surnis, M, Susarla, S, Susobhanan, A, Takahashi, K, Tarafdar, P, Theureau, G, Tiburzi, C, van der Wateren, E, Vecchio, A, Krishnan, V, Verbiest, J, Wang, J, Wang, L, Wu, Z, Antoniadis, J., Arumugam, P., Arumugam, S., Babak, S., Bagchi, M., Nielsen, A. -S. Bak, Bassa, C. G., Bathula, A., Berthereau, A., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Caballero, R. N., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Dandapat, S., Deb, D., Desai, S., Desvignes, G., Dhanda-Batra, N., Dwivedi, C., Falxa, M., Ferdman, R. D., Franchini, A., Gair, J. R., Goncharov, B., Gopakumar, A., Graikou, E., Grießmeier, J. -M., Guillemot, L., Guo, Y. J., Gupta, Y., Hisano, S., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jessner, A., Joshi, B. C., Kareem, F., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Kharbanda, D., Kikunaga, T., Kolhe, N., Kramer, M., Krishnakumar, M. A., Lackeos, K., Lee, K. J., Liu, K., Liu, Y., Lyne, A. G., McKee, J. W., Maan, Y., Main, R. A., Mickaliger, M. B., Niţu, I. C., Nobleson, K., Paladi, A. K., Parthasarathy, A., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Prabu, T., Leclere, H. Quelquejay, Rana, P., Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Singha, J., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Srivastava, A., Stappers, B. W., Surnis, M., Susarla, S. C., Susobhanan, A., Takahashi, K., Tarafdar, P., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., van der Wateren, E., Vecchio, A., Krishnan, V. Venkatraman, Verbiest, J. P. W., Wang, J., Wang, L., and Wu, Z.

Abstract

Aims. The nanohertz gravitational wave background (GWB) is expected to be an aggregate signal of an ensemble of gravitational waves emitted predominantly by a large population of coalescing supermassive black hole binaries in the centres of merging galaxies. Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs), which are ensembles of extremely stable pulsars at approximately kiloparsec distances precisely monitored for decades, are the most precise experiments capable of detecting this background. However, the subtle imprints that the GWB induces on pulsar timing data are obscured by many sources of noise that occur on various timescales. These must be carefully modelled and mitigated to increase the sensitivity to the background signal. Methods. In this paper, we present a novel technique to estimate the optimal number of frequency coefficients for modelling achromatic and chromatic noise, while selecting the preferred set of noise models to use for each pulsar. We also incorporated a new model to fit for scattering variations in the Bayesian pulsar timing package temponest. These customised noise models enable a more robust characterisation of single-pulsar noise. We developed a software package based on tempo2 to create realistic simulations of European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) datasets that allowed us to test the efficacy of our noise modelling algorithms. Results. Using these techniques, we present an in-depth analysis of the noise properties of 25 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) that form the second data release (DR2) of the EPTA and investigate the effect of incorporating low-frequency data from the Indian Pulsar Timing Array collaboration for a common sample of ten MSPs. We used two packages, enterprise and temponest, to estimate our noise models and compare them with those reported using EPTA DR1. We find that, while in some pulsars we can successfully disentangle chromatic from achromatic noise owing to the wider frequency coverage in DR2, in others the noise models evolve in a much

Published
2023

23. The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array IV. Search for continuous gravitational wave signals

Author

Antoniadis, J., Arumugam, P., Arumugam, S., Babak, S., Bagchi, M., Nielsen, A. S. Bak, Bassa, C. G., Bathula, A., Berthereau, A., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Caballero, R. N., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Dandapat, S., Deb, D., Desai, S., Desvignes, G., Dhanda-Batra, N., Dwivedi, C., Falxa, M., Ferranti, I., Ferdman, R. D., Franchini, A., Gair, J. R., Goncharov, B., Gopakumar, A., Graikou, E., Grießmeier, J. M., Guillemot, L., Guo, Y. J., Gupta, Y., Hisano, S., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jessner, A., Joshi, B. C., Kareem, F., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Kharbanda, D., Kikunaga, T., Kolhe, N., Kramer, M., Krishnakumar, M. A., Lackeos, K., Lee, K. J., Liu, K., Liu, Y., Lyne, A. G., McKee, J. W., Maan, Y., Main, R. A., Manzini, S., Mickaliger, M. B., Nitu, I. C., Nobleson, K., Paladi, A. K., Parthasarathy, A., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Prabu, T., Leclere, H. Quelquejay, Rana, P., Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Singha, J., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Srivastava, A., Stappers, B. W., Surnis, M., Susarla, S. C., Susobhanan, A., Takahashi, K., Tarafdar, P., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., van der Wateren, E., Vecchio, A., Krishnan, V. Venkatraman, Verbiest, Joris, Wang, J., Wang, L., Wu, Z., AstroParticule et Cosmologie (APC (UMR_7164)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité), Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace (LPC2E), Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers en région Centre (OSUC), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National d’Études Spatiales [Paris] (CNES), Unité Scientifique de la Station de Nançay (USN), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Institut de Recherches sur les lois Fondamentales de l'Univers (IRFU), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Université Paris-Saclay, and Laboratoire Univers et Théories (LUTH (UMR_8102))

Subjects
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE), Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO), Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA), [PHYS.GRQC]Physics [physics]/General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology [gr-qc], FOS: Physical sciences, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc), [PHYS.ASTR]Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph], Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies, General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract

We present the results of a search for continuous gravitational wave signals (CGWs) in the second data release (DR2) of the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) collaboration. The most significant candidate event from this search has a gravitational wave frequency of 4-5 nHz. Such a signal could be generated by a supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) in the local Universe. We present the results of a follow-up analysis of this candidate using both Bayesian and frequentist methods. The Bayesian analysis gives a Bayes factor of 4 in favor of the presence of the CGW over a common uncorrelated noise process, while the frequentist analysis estimates the p-value of the candidate to be 1%, also assuming the presence of common uncorrelated red noise. However, comparing a model that includes both a CGW and a gravitational wave background (GWB) to a GWB only, the Bayes factor in favour of the CGW model is only 0.7. Therefore, we cannot conclusively determine the origin of the observed feature, but we cannot rule it out as a CGW source. We present results of simulations that demonstrate that data containing a weak gravitational wave background can be misinterpreted as data including a CGW and vice versa, providing two plausible explanations of the EPTA DR2 data. Further investigations combining data from all PTA collaborations will be needed to reveal the true origin of this feature., 12 figures, 15 pages, to be submitted

Published
2023

24. The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array: V. Implications for massive black holes, dark matter and the early Universe

Author

Antoniadis, J., Arumugam, P., Arumugam, S., Auclair, P., Babak, S., Bagchi, M., Nielsen, A. -S. Bak, Barausse, E., Bassa, C. G., Bathula, A., Berthereau, A., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Caballero, R. N., Caprini, C., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Crisostomi, M., Dandapat, S., Deb, D., Desai, S., Desvignes, G., Dhanda-Batra, N., Dwivedi, C., Falxa, M., Fastidio, F., Ferdman, R. D., Franchini, A., Gair, J. R., Goncharov, B., Gopakumar, A., Graikou, E., Grießmeier, J. -M., Gualandris, A., Guillemot, L., Guo, Y. J., Gupta, Y., Hisano, S., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jessner, A., Joshi, B. C., Kareem, F., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Kharbanda, D., Khizriev, T., Kikunaga, T., Kolhe, N., Kramer, M., Krishnakumar, M. A., Lackeos, K., Lee, K. J., Liu, K., Liu, Y., Lyne, A. G., McKee, J. W., Maan, Y., Main, R. A., Mickaliger, M. B., Middleton, H., Neronov, A., Nitu, I. C., Nobleson, K., Paladi, A. K., Parthasarathy, A., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Prabu, T., Postnov, K., Leclere, H. Quelquejay, Rana, P., Pol, A. Roper, Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Semikoz, D., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Singha, J., Smarra, C., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Srivastava, A., Stappers, B. W., Steer, D. A., Surnis, M., Susarla, S. C., Susobhanan, A., Takahashi, K., Tarafdar, P., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., Truant, R. J., van der Wateren, E., Valtolina, S., Vecchio, A., Krishnan, V. Venkatraman, Verbiest, J. P. W., Wang, J., Wang, L., Wu, Z., Antoniadis, J., Arumugam, P., Arumugam, S., Auclair, P., Babak, S., Bagchi, M., Nielsen, A. -S. Bak, Barausse, E., Bassa, C. G., Bathula, A., Berthereau, A., Bonetti, M., Bortolas, E., Brook, P. R., Burgay, M., Caballero, R. N., Caprini, C., Chalumeau, A., Champion, D. J., Chanlaridis, S., Chen, S., Cognard, I., Crisostomi, M., Dandapat, S., Deb, D., Desai, S., Desvignes, G., Dhanda-Batra, N., Dwivedi, C., Falxa, M., Fastidio, F., Ferdman, R. D., Franchini, A., Gair, J. R., Goncharov, B., Gopakumar, A., Graikou, E., Grießmeier, J. -M., Gualandris, A., Guillemot, L., Guo, Y. J., Gupta, Y., Hisano, S., Hu, H., Iraci, F., Izquierdo-Villalba, D., Jang, J., Jawor, J., Janssen, G. H., Jessner, A., Joshi, B. C., Kareem, F., Karuppusamy, R., Keane, E. F., Keith, M. J., Kharbanda, D., Khizriev, T., Kikunaga, T., Kolhe, N., Kramer, M., Krishnakumar, M. A., Lackeos, K., Lee, K. J., Liu, K., Liu, Y., Lyne, A. G., McKee, J. W., Maan, Y., Main, R. A., Mickaliger, M. B., Middleton, H., Neronov, A., Nitu, I. C., Nobleson, K., Paladi, A. K., Parthasarathy, A., Perera, B. B. P., Perrodin, D., Petiteau, A., Porayko, N. K., Possenti, A., Prabu, T., Postnov, K., Leclere, H. Quelquejay, Rana, P., Pol, A. Roper, Samajdar, A., Sanidas, S. A., Semikoz, D., Sesana, A., Shaifullah, G., Singha, J., Smarra, C., Speri, L., Spiewak, R., Srivastava, A., Stappers, B. W., Steer, D. A., Surnis, M., Susarla, S. C., Susobhanan, A., Takahashi, K., Tarafdar, P., Theureau, G., Tiburzi, C., Truant, R. J., van der Wateren, E., Valtolina, S., Vecchio, A., Krishnan, V. Venkatraman, Verbiest, J. P. W., Wang, J., Wang, L., and Wu, Z.

Abstract

The European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) and Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA) collaborations have measured a low-frequency common signal in the combination of their second and first data releases respectively, with the correlation properties of a gravitational wave background (GWB). Such signal may have its origin in a number of physical processes including a cosmic population of inspiralling supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs); inflation, phase transitions, cosmic strings and tensor mode generation by non-linear evolution of scalar perturbations in the early Universe; oscillations of the Galactic potential in the presence of ultra-light dark matter (ULDM). At the current stage of emerging evidence, it is impossible to discriminate among the different origins. Therefore, in this paper, we consider each process separately, and investigate the implications of the signal under the hypothesis that it is generated by that specific process. We find that the signal is consistent with a cosmic population of inspiralling SMBHBs, and its relatively high amplitude can be used to place constraints on binary merger timescales and the SMBH-host galaxy scaling relations. If this origin is confirmed, this is the first direct evidence that SMBHBs merge in nature, adding an important observational piece to the puzzle of structure formation and galaxy evolution. As for early Universe processes, the measurement would place tight constraints on the cosmic string tension and on the level of turbulence developed by first-order phase transitions. Other processes would require non-standard scenarios, such as a blue-tilted inflationary spectrum or an excess in the primordial spectrum of scalar perturbations at large wavenumbers. Finally, a ULDM origin of the detected signal is disfavoured, which leads to direct constraints on the abundance of ULDM in our Galaxy., Comment: 31 pages, 23 figures, to be submitted to Astronomy & Astrophysics

Published
2023

25. PSR J0210+5845: Ultra-wide binary pulsar with a B6 V main sequence star companion.

Author

van der Wateren, E., Bassa, C. G., Janssen, G. H., Yanes-Rizo, I. V., Casares, J., Nelemans, G., Stappers, B. W., and Tan, C. M.

Subjects
*MAIN sequence (Astronomy), *BINARY pulsars, *STELLAR evolution, *OPTICAL spectroscopy, *SUPERNOVAE
Abstract

We report on radio timing observations of PSR J0210+5845 that reveal large deviations from typical pulsar spin-down behaviour. We interpret these deviations as being due to the binary motion around the V = 13.5 star 2MASS J02105640+5845176, which is coincident in terms of its celestial position and distance with the pulsar. Archival observations and new optical spectroscopy have identified this object as a B6 V star, with a temperature of Teff ≈ 14 000 K and a mass of Mc = 3.5 to 3.8 M⊙, making it the lowest mass for a main sequence star known to be orbiting a non-recycled pulsar. We find that the timing observations constrain the binary orbit to be wide and moderately eccentric, with an orbital period of Pb = 47−14+40 yr and eccentricity of e = 0.46−0.07+0.10. We predict that the next periastron passage will occur between 2030 and 2034. Due to the low companion mass, we find that the probability for a system with the properties of PSR J0210+5845 and its binary companion to survive the supernova is low. We show that a low velocity and fortuitously directed natal kick is required for the binary to remain bound during the supernova explosion and we argue that an electron-capture supernova is a plausible formation scenario for the pulsar. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Published
2024
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26. The LOFAR Tied-Array All-Sky Survey: Timing of 35 radio pulsars and an overview of the properties of the LOFAR pulsar discoveries

Author

van der Wateren, E., primary, Bassa, C. G., additional, Cooper, S., additional, Grießmeier, J.-M., additional, Stappers, B. W., additional, Hessels, J. W. T., additional, Kondratiev, V. I., additional, Michilli, D., additional, Tan, C. M., additional, Tiburzi, C., additional, Weltevrede, P., additional, Bak Nielsen, A.-S., additional, Carozzi, T. D., additional, Ciardi, B., additional, Cognard, I., additional, Dettmar, R.-J., additional, Karastergiou, A., additional, Kramer, M., additional, Künsemöller, J., additional, Osłowski, S., additional, Serylak, M., additional, Vocks, C., additional, and Wucknitz, O., additional

Published
2023
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27. The impact of solar wind variability on pulsar timing

Author

Tiburzi, C, Shaifullah, G, Bassa, C, Zucca, P, Verbiest, J, Porayko, N, Van Der Wateren, E, Fallows, R, Main, R, Janssen, G, Anderson, J, Bak Nielsen, A, Donner, J, Keane, E, Kunsemoller, J, Oslowski, S, Griessmeier, J, Serylak, M, Bruggen, M, Ciardi, B, Dettmar, R, Hoeft, M, Kramer, M, Mann, G, Vocks, C, Tiburzi C., Shaifullah G. M., Bassa C. G., Zucca P., Verbiest J. P. W., Porayko N. K., Van Der Wateren E., Fallows R. A., Main R. A., Janssen G. H., Anderson J. M., Bak Nielsen A. -S., Donner J. Y., Keane E. F., Kunsemoller J., Oslowski S., Griessmeier J. -M., Serylak M., Bruggen M., Ciardi B., Dettmar R. -J., Hoeft M., Kramer M., Mann G., Vocks C., Tiburzi, C, Shaifullah, G, Bassa, C, Zucca, P, Verbiest, J, Porayko, N, Van Der Wateren, E, Fallows, R, Main, R, Janssen, G, Anderson, J, Bak Nielsen, A, Donner, J, Keane, E, Kunsemoller, J, Oslowski, S, Griessmeier, J, Serylak, M, Bruggen, M, Ciardi, B, Dettmar, R, Hoeft, M, Kramer, M, Mann, G, Vocks, C, Tiburzi C., Shaifullah G. M., Bassa C. G., Zucca P., Verbiest J. P. W., Porayko N. K., Van Der Wateren E., Fallows R. A., Main R. A., Janssen G. H., Anderson J. M., Bak Nielsen A. -S., Donner J. Y., Keane E. F., Kunsemoller J., Oslowski S., Griessmeier J. -M., Serylak M., Bruggen M., Ciardi B., Dettmar R. -J., Hoeft M., Kramer M., Mann G., and Vocks C.

Abstract

Context. High-precision pulsar timing requires accurate corrections for dispersive delays of radio waves, parametrized by the dispersion measure (DM), particularly if these delays are variable in time. In a previous paper, we studied the solar wind (SW) models used in pulsar timing to mitigate the excess of DM that is annually induced by the SW and found these to be insufficient for high-precision pulsar timing. Here we analyze additional pulsar datasets to further investigate which aspects of the SW models currently used in pulsar timing can be readily improved, and at what levels of timing precision SW mitigation is possible. Aims. Our goals are to verify: (a) whether the data are better described by a spherical model of the SW with a time-variable amplitude, rather than a time-invariant one as suggested in literature, and (b) whether a temporal trend of such a model's amplitudes can be detected. Methods. We use the pulsar timing technique on low-frequency pulsar observations to estimate the DM and quantify how this value changes as the Earth moves around the Sun. Specifically, we monitor the DM in weekly to monthly observations of 14 pulsars taken with parts of the LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR) across time spans of up to 6 years. We develop an informed algorithm to separate the interstellar variations in the DM from those caused by the SW and demonstrate the functionality of this algorithm with extensive simulations. Assuming a spherically symmetric model for the SW density, we derive the amplitude of this model for each year of observations. Results. We show that a spherical model with a time-variable amplitude models the observations better than a spherical model with a constant amplitude, but that both approaches leave significant SW-induced delays uncorrected in a number of pulsars in the sample. The amplitude of the spherical model is found to be variable in time, as opposed to what has been previously suggested.

Published
2021

28. Robust parameter estimation from pulsar timing data

Author

Samajdar, A, primary, Shaifullah, G M, additional, Sesana, A, additional, Antoniadis, J, additional, Burgay, M, additional, Chen, S, additional, Cognard, I, additional, Guillemot, L, additional, Kramer, M, additional, McKee, J W, additional, Mickaliger, M B, additional, Theureau, G, additional, and Van der Wateren, E, additional

Published
2022
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29. Noise analysis in the European Pulsar Timing Array data release 2 and its implications on the gravitational-wave background search

Author

Chalumeau, A, Babak, S, Petiteau, A, Chen, S, Samajdar, A, Caballero, R, Theureau, G, Guillemot, L, Desvignes, G, Parthasarathy, A, Liu, K, Shaifullah, G, Hu, H, van der Wateren, E, Antoniadis, J, Bak Nielsen, A, Bassa, C, Berthereau, A, Burgay, M, Champion, D, Cognard, I, Falxa, M, Ferdman, R, Freire, P, Gair, J, Graikou, E, Guo, Y, Jang, J, Janssen, G, Karuppusamy, R, Keith, M, Kramer, M, Lee, K, Liu, X, Lyne, A, Main, R, Mckee, J, Mickaliger, M, Perera, B, Perrodin, D, Porayko, N, Possenti, A, Sanidas, S, Sesana, A, Speri, L, Stappers, B, Tiburzi, C, Vecchio, A, Verbiest, J, Wang, J, Wang, L, Xu, H, Caballero, RN, Bak Nielsen, A-S, Bassa, CG, Champion, DJ, Ferdman, RD, Freire, PCC, Gair, JR, Guo, YJ, Janssen, GH, Keith, MJ, Lee, KJ, Liu, XJ, Lyne, AG, Main, RA, McKee, JW, Mickaliger, MB, Perera, BBP, Porayko, NK, Sanidas, SA, Stappers, BW, Verbiest, JPW, Chalumeau, A, Babak, S, Petiteau, A, Chen, S, Samajdar, A, Caballero, R, Theureau, G, Guillemot, L, Desvignes, G, Parthasarathy, A, Liu, K, Shaifullah, G, Hu, H, van der Wateren, E, Antoniadis, J, Bak Nielsen, A, Bassa, C, Berthereau, A, Burgay, M, Champion, D, Cognard, I, Falxa, M, Ferdman, R, Freire, P, Gair, J, Graikou, E, Guo, Y, Jang, J, Janssen, G, Karuppusamy, R, Keith, M, Kramer, M, Lee, K, Liu, X, Lyne, A, Main, R, Mckee, J, Mickaliger, M, Perera, B, Perrodin, D, Porayko, N, Possenti, A, Sanidas, S, Sesana, A, Speri, L, Stappers, B, Tiburzi, C, Vecchio, A, Verbiest, J, Wang, J, Wang, L, Xu, H, Caballero, RN, Bak Nielsen, A-S, Bassa, CG, Champion, DJ, Ferdman, RD, Freire, PCC, Gair, JR, Guo, YJ, Janssen, GH, Keith, MJ, Lee, KJ, Liu, XJ, Lyne, AG, Main, RA, McKee, JW, Mickaliger, MB, Perera, BBP, Porayko, NK, Sanidas, SA, Stappers, BW, and Verbiest, JPW

Abstract

The European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) collaboration has recently released an extended data set for six pulsars (DR2) and reported evidence for a common red noise signal. Here we present a noise analysis for each of the six pulsars. We consider several types of noise: (i) radio frequency independent, 'achromatic', and time-correlated red noise; (ii) variations of dispersion measure and scattering; (iii) system and band noise; and (iv) deterministic signals (other than gravitational waves) that could be present in the PTA data. We perform Bayesian model selection to find the optimal combination of noise components for each pulsar. Using these custom models we revisit the presence of the common uncorrelated red noise signal previously reported in the EPTA DR2 and show that the data still supports it with a high statistical significance. Next, we confirm that there is no preference for or against the Hellings-Downs spatial correlations expected for the stochastic gravitational-wave background. The main conclusion of the EPTA DR2 paper remains unchanged despite a very significant change in the noise model of each pulsar. However, modelling the noise is essential for the robust detection of gravitational waves and its impact could be significant when analysing the next EPTA data release, which will include a larger number of pulsars and more precise measurements.

Published
2022

30. Irradiated but not eclipsed, the case of PSR J0610−2100

Author

van der Wateren, E., primary, Bassa, C. G., additional, Clark, C. J., additional, Breton, R. P., additional, Cognard, I., additional, Guillemot, L., additional, Janssen, G. H., additional, Lyne, A. G., additional, Stappers, B. W., additional, and Theureau, G., additional

Published
2022
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31. The International Pulsar Timing Array second data release: Search for an isotropic gravitational wave background

Author

Antoniadis, J, primary, Arzoumanian, Z, additional, Babak, S, additional, Bailes, M, additional, Bak Nielsen, A-S, additional, Baker, P T, additional, Bassa, C G, additional, Bécsy, B, additional, Berthereau, A, additional, Bonetti, M, additional, Brazier, A, additional, Brook, P R, additional, Burgay, M, additional, Burke-Spolaor, S, additional, Caballero, R N, additional, Casey-Clyde, J A, additional, Chalumeau, A, additional, Champion, D J, additional, Charisi, M, additional, Chatterjee, S, additional, Chen, S, additional, Cognard, I, additional, Cordes, J M, additional, Cornish, N J, additional, Crawford, F, additional, Cromartie, H T, additional, Crowter, K, additional, Dai, S, additional, DeCesar, M E, additional, Demorest, P B, additional, Desvignes, G, additional, Dolch, T, additional, Drachler, B, additional, Falxa, M, additional, Ferrara, E C, additional, Fiore, W, additional, Fonseca, E, additional, Gair, J R, additional, Garver-Daniels, N, additional, Goncharov, B, additional, Good, D C, additional, Graikou, E, additional, Guillemot, L, additional, Guo, Y J, additional, Hazboun, J S, additional, Hobbs, G, additional, Hu, H, additional, Islo, K, additional, Janssen, G H, additional, Jennings, R J, additional, Johnson, A D, additional, Jones, M L, additional, Kaiser, A R, additional, Kaplan, D L, additional, Karuppusamy, R, additional, Keith, M J, additional, Kelley, L Z, additional, Kerr, M, additional, Key, J S, additional, Kramer, M, additional, Lam, M T, additional, Lamb, W G, additional, Lazio, T J W, additional, Lee, K J, additional, Lentati, L, additional, Liu, K, additional, Luo, J, additional, Lynch, R S, additional, Lyne, A G, additional, Madison, D R, additional, Main, R A, additional, Manchester, R N, additional, McEwen, A, additional, McKee, J W, additional, McLaughlin, M A, additional, Mickaliger, M B, additional, Mingarelli, C M F, additional, Ng, C, additional, Nice, D J, additional, Osłowski, S, additional, Parthasarathy, A, additional, Pennucci, T T, additional, Perera, B B P, additional, Perrodin, D, additional, Petiteau, A, additional, Pol, N S, additional, Porayko, N K, additional, Possenti, A, additional, Ransom, S M, additional, Ray, P S, additional, Reardon, D J, additional, Russell, C J, additional, Samajdar, A, additional, Sampson, L M, additional, Sanidas, S, additional, Sarkissian, J M, additional, Schmitz, K, additional, Schult, L, additional, Sesana, A, additional, Shaifullah, G, additional, Shannon, R M, additional, Shapiro-Albert, B J, additional, Siemens, X, additional, Simon, J, additional, Smith, T L, additional, Speri, L, additional, Spiewak, R, additional, Stairs, I H, additional, Stappers, B W, additional, Stinebring, D R, additional, Swiggum, J K, additional, Taylor, S R, additional, Theureau, G, additional, Tiburzi, C, additional, Vallisneri, M, additional, van der Wateren, E, additional, Vecchio, A, additional, Verbiest, J P W, additional, Vigeland, S J, additional, Wahl, H, additional, Wang, J B, additional, Wang, J, additional, Wang, L, additional, Witt, C A, additional, Zhang, S, additional, and Zhu, X J, additional

Published
2022
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32. Noise analysis in the European Pulsar Timing Array data release 2 and its implications on the gravitational-wave background search

Author

Chalumeau, A, primary, Babak, S, additional, Petiteau, A, additional, Chen, S, additional, Samajdar, A, additional, Caballero, R N, additional, Theureau, G, additional, Guillemot, L, additional, Desvignes, G, additional, Parthasarathy, A, additional, Liu, K, additional, Shaifullah, G, additional, Hu, H, additional, van der Wateren, E, additional, Antoniadis, J, additional, Bak Nielsen, A-S, additional, Bassa, C G, additional, Berthereau, A, additional, Burgay, M, additional, Champion, D J, additional, Cognard, I, additional, Falxa, M, additional, Ferdman, R D, additional, Freire, P C C, additional, Gair, J R, additional, Graikou, E, additional, Guo, Y J, additional, Jang, J, additional, Janssen, G H, additional, Karuppusamy, R, additional, Keith, M J, additional, Kramer, M, additional, Lee, K J, additional, Liu, X J, additional, Lyne, A G, additional, Main, R A, additional, McKee, J W, additional, Mickaliger, M B, additional, Perera, B B P, additional, Perrodin, D, additional, Porayko, N K, additional, Possenti, A, additional, Sanidas, S A, additional, Sesana, A, additional, Speri, L, additional, Stappers, B W, additional, Tiburzi, C, additional, Vecchio, A, additional, Verbiest, J P W, additional, Wang, J, additional, Wang, L, additional, and Xu, H, additional

Published
2021
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33. Common-red-signal analysis with 24-yr high-precision timing of the European Pulsar Timing Array: inferences in the stochastic gravitational-wave background search

Author

Chen, S, primary, Caballero, R N, additional, Guo, Y J, additional, Chalumeau, A, additional, Liu, K, additional, Shaifullah, G, additional, Lee, K J, additional, Babak, S, additional, Desvignes, G, additional, Parthasarathy, A, additional, Hu, H, additional, van der Wateren, E, additional, Antoniadis, J, additional, Bak Nielsen, A-S, additional, Bassa, C G, additional, Berthereau, A, additional, Burgay, M, additional, Champion, D J, additional, Cognard, I, additional, Falxa, M, additional, Ferdman, R D, additional, Freire, P C C, additional, Gair, J R, additional, Graikou, E, additional, Guillemot, L, additional, Jang, J, additional, Janssen, G H, additional, Karuppusamy, R, additional, Keith, M J, additional, Kramer, M, additional, Liu, X J, additional, Lyne, A G, additional, Main, R A, additional, McKee, J W, additional, Mickaliger, M B, additional, Perera, B B P, additional, Perrodin, D, additional, Petiteau, A, additional, Porayko, N K, additional, Possenti, A, additional, Samajdar, A, additional, Sanidas, S A, additional, Sesana, A, additional, Speri, L, additional, Stappers, B W, additional, Theureau, G, additional, Tiburzi, C, additional, Vecchio, A, additional, Verbiest, J P W, additional, Wang, J, additional, Wang, L, additional, and Xu, H, additional

Published
2021
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34. The impact of solar wind variability on pulsar timing

Author

Tiburzi, C., primary, Shaifullah, G. M., additional, Bassa, C. G., additional, Zucca, P., additional, Verbiest, J. P. W., additional, Porayko, N. K., additional, van der Wateren, E., additional, Fallows, R. A., additional, Main, R. A., additional, Janssen, G. H., additional, Anderson, J. M., additional, Bak Nielsen, A.-S., additional, Donner, J. Y., additional, Keane, E. F., additional, Künsemöller, J., additional, Osłowski, S., additional, Grießmeier, J.-M., additional, Serylak, M., additional, Brüggen, M., additional, Ciardi, B., additional, Dettmar, R.-J., additional, Hoeft, M., additional, Kramer, M., additional, Mann, G., additional, and Vocks, C., additional

Published
2021
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36. The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array: V. Implications for massive black holes, dark matter and the early Universe

Author

Antoniadis, J, Arumugam, P, Arumugam, S, Auclair, P, Babak, S, Bagchi, M, Bak Nielsen, A, Barausse, E, Bassa, C, Bathula, A, Berthereau, A, Bonetti, M, Bortolas, E, Brook, P, Burgay, M, Caballero, R, Caprini, C, Chalumeau, A, Champion, D, Chanlaridis, S, Chen, S, Cognard, I, Crisostomi, M, Dandapat, S, Deb, D, Desai, S, Desvignes, G, Dhanda-Batra, N, Dwivedi, C, Falxa, M, Fastidio, F, Ferdman, R, Franchini, A, Gair, J, Goncharov, B, Gopakumar, A, Graikou, E, Grießmeier, J, Gualandris, A, Guillemot, L, Guo, Y, Gupta, Y, Hisano, S, Hu, H, Iraci, F, Izquierdo-Villalba, D, Jang, J, Jawor, J, Janssen, G, Jessner, A, Joshi, B, Kareem, F, Karuppusamy, R, Keane, E, Keith, M, Kharbanda, D, Khizriev, T, Kikunaga, T, Kolhe, N, Kramer, M, Krishnakumar, M, Lackeos, K, Lee, K, Liu, K, Liu, Y, Lyne, A, Mckee, J, Maan, Y, Main, R, Mickaliger, M, Middleton, H, Neronov, A, Nitu, I, Nobleson, K, Paladi, A, Parthasarathy, A, Perera, B, Perrodin, D, Petiteau, A, Porayko, N, Possenti, A, Prabu, T, Postnov, K, Quelquejay Leclere, H, Rana, P, Roper Pol, A, Samajdar, A, Sanidas, S, Semikoz, D, Sesana, A, Shaifullah, G, Singha, J, Smarra, C, Speri, L, Spiewak, R, Srivastava, A, Stappers, B, Steer, D, Surnis, M, Susarla, S, Susobhanan, A, Takahashi, K, Tarafdar, P, Theureau, G, Tiburzi, C, Truant, R, van der Wateren, E, Valtolina, S, Vecchio, A, Venkatraman Krishnan, V, Verbiest, J, Wang, J, Wang, L, Wu, Z, J. Antoniadis, P. Arumugam, S. Arumugam, P. Auclair, S. Babak, M. Bagchi, A. -S. Bak Nielsen, E. Barausse, C. G. Bassa, A. Bathula, A. Berthereau, M. Bonetti, E. Bortolas, P. R. Brook, M. Burgay, R. N. Caballero, C. Caprini, A. Chalumeau, D. J. Champion, S. Chanlaridis, S. Chen, I. Cognard, M. Crisostomi, S. Dandapat, D. Deb, S. Desai, G. Desvignes, N. Dhanda-Batra, C. Dwivedi, M. Falxa, F. Fastidio, R. D. Ferdman, A. Franchini, J. R. Gair, B. Goncharov, A. Gopakumar, E. Graikou, J. -M. Grießmeier, A. Gualandris, L. Guillemot, Y. J. Guo, Y. Gupta, S. Hisano, H. Hu, F. Iraci, D. Izquierdo-Villalba, J. Jang, J. Jawor, G. H. Janssen, A. Jessner, B. C. Joshi, F. Kareem, R. Karuppusamy, E. F. Keane, M. J. Keith, D. Kharbanda, T. Khizriev, T. Kikunaga, N. Kolhe, M. Kramer, M. A. Krishnakumar, K. Lackeos, K. J. Lee, K. Liu, Y. Liu, A. G. Lyne, J. W. McKee, Y. Maan, R. A. Main, M. B. Mickaliger, H. Middleton, A. Neronov, I. C. Nitu, K. Nobleson, A. K. Paladi, A. Parthasarathy, B. B. P. Perera, D. Perrodin, A. Petiteau, N. K. Porayko, A. Possenti, T. Prabu, K. Postnov, H. Quelquejay Leclere, P. Rana, A. Roper Pol, A. Samajdar, S. A. Sanidas, D. Semikoz, A. Sesana, G. Shaifullah, J. Singha, C. Smarra, L. Speri, R. Spiewak, A. Srivastava, B. W. Stappers, D. A. Steer, M. Surnis, S. C. Susarla, A. Susobhanan, K. Takahashi, P. Tarafdar, G. Theureau, C. Tiburzi, R. J. Truant, E. van der Wateren, S. Valtolina, A. Vecchio, V. Venkatraman Krishnan, J. P. W. Verbiest, J. Wang, L. Wang, Z. Wu, Antoniadis, J, Arumugam, P, Arumugam, S, Auclair, P, Babak, S, Bagchi, M, Bak Nielsen, A, Barausse, E, Bassa, C, Bathula, A, Berthereau, A, Bonetti, M, Bortolas, E, Brook, P, Burgay, M, Caballero, R, Caprini, C, Chalumeau, A, Champion, D, Chanlaridis, S, Chen, S, Cognard, I, Crisostomi, M, Dandapat, S, Deb, D, Desai, S, Desvignes, G, Dhanda-Batra, N, Dwivedi, C, Falxa, M, Fastidio, F, Ferdman, R, Franchini, A, Gair, J, Goncharov, B, Gopakumar, A, Graikou, E, Grießmeier, J, Gualandris, A, Guillemot, L, Guo, Y, Gupta, Y, Hisano, S, Hu, H, Iraci, F, Izquierdo-Villalba, D, Jang, J, Jawor, J, Janssen, G, Jessner, A, Joshi, B, Kareem, F, Karuppusamy, R, Keane, E, Keith, M, Kharbanda, D, Khizriev, T, Kikunaga, T, Kolhe, N, Kramer, M, Krishnakumar, M, Lackeos, K, Lee, K, Liu, K, Liu, Y, Lyne, A, Mckee, J, Maan, Y, Main, R, Mickaliger, M, Middleton, H, Neronov, A, Nitu, I, Nobleson, K, Paladi, A, Parthasarathy, A, Perera, B, Perrodin, D, Petiteau, A, Porayko, N, Possenti, A, Prabu, T, Postnov, K, Quelquejay Leclere, H, Rana, P, Roper Pol, A, Samajdar, A, Sanidas, S, Semikoz, D, Sesana, A, Shaifullah, G, Singha, J, Smarra, C, Speri, L, Spiewak, R, Srivastava, A, Stappers, B, Steer, D, Surnis, M, Susarla, S, Susobhanan, A, Takahashi, K, Tarafdar, P, Theureau, G, Tiburzi, C, Truant, R, van der Wateren, E, Valtolina, S, Vecchio, A, Venkatraman Krishnan, V, Verbiest, J, Wang, J, Wang, L, Wu, Z, J. Antoniadis, P. Arumugam, S. Arumugam, P. Auclair, S. Babak, M. Bagchi, A. -S. Bak Nielsen, E. Barausse, C. G. Bassa, A. Bathula, A. Berthereau, M. Bonetti, E. Bortolas, P. R. Brook, M. Burgay, R. N. Caballero, C. Caprini, A. Chalumeau, D. J. Champion, S. Chanlaridis, S. Chen, I. Cognard, M. Crisostomi, S. Dandapat, D. Deb, S. Desai, G. Desvignes, N. Dhanda-Batra, C. Dwivedi, M. Falxa, F. Fastidio, R. D. Ferdman, A. Franchini, J. R. Gair, B. Goncharov, A. Gopakumar, E. Graikou, J. -M. Grießmeier, A. Gualandris, L. Guillemot, Y. J. Guo, Y. Gupta, S. Hisano, H. Hu, F. Iraci, D. Izquierdo-Villalba, J. Jang, J. Jawor, G. H. Janssen, A. Jessner, B. C. Joshi, F. Kareem, R. Karuppusamy, E. F. Keane, M. J. Keith, D. Kharbanda, T. Khizriev, T. Kikunaga, N. Kolhe, M. Kramer, M. A. Krishnakumar, K. Lackeos, K. J. Lee, K. Liu, Y. Liu, A. G. Lyne, J. W. McKee, Y. Maan, R. A. Main, M. B. Mickaliger, H. Middleton, A. Neronov, I. C. Nitu, K. Nobleson, A. K. Paladi, A. Parthasarathy, B. B. P. Perera, D. Perrodin, A. Petiteau, N. K. Porayko, A. Possenti, T. Prabu, K. Postnov, H. Quelquejay Leclere, P. Rana, A. Roper Pol, A. Samajdar, S. A. Sanidas, D. Semikoz, A. Sesana, G. Shaifullah, J. Singha, C. Smarra, L. Speri, R. Spiewak, A. Srivastava, B. W. Stappers, D. A. Steer, M. Surnis, S. C. Susarla, A. Susobhanan, K. Takahashi, P. Tarafdar, G. Theureau, C. Tiburzi, R. J. Truant, E. van der Wateren, S. Valtolina, A. Vecchio, V. Venkatraman Krishnan, J. P. W. Verbiest, J. Wang, L. Wang, and Z. Wu

Abstract

The European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) and Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA) collaborations have measured a low-frequency common signal in the combination of their second and first data releases respectively, with the correlation properties of a gravitational wave background (GWB). Such signal may have its origin in a number of physical processes including a cosmic population of inspiralling supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs); inflation, phase transitions, cosmic strings and tensor mode generation by non-linear evolution of scalar perturbations in the early Universe; oscillations of the Galactic potential in the presence of ultra-light dark matter (ULDM). At the current stage of emerging evidence, it is impossible to discriminate among the different origins. Therefore, in this paper, we consider each process separately, and investigate the implications of the signal under the hypothesis that it is generated by that specific process. We find that the signal is consistent with a cosmic population of inspiralling SMBHBs, and its relatively high amplitude can be used to place constraints on binary merger timescales and the SMBH-host galaxy scaling relations. If this origin is confirmed, this is the first direct evidence that SMBHBs merge in nature, adding an important observational piece to the puzzle of structure formation and galaxy evolution. As for early Universe processes, the measurement would place tight constraints on the cosmic string tension and on the level of turbulence developed by first-order phase transitions. Other processes would require non-standard scenarios, such as a blue-tilted inflationary spectrum or an excess in the primordial spectrum of scalar perturbations at large wavenumbers. Finally, a ULDM origin of the detected signal is disfavoured, which leads to direct constraints on the abundance of ULDM in our Galaxy.

37. The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array IV. Search for continuous gravitational wave signals

Author

Antoniadis, J, Arumugam, P, Arumugam, S, Babak, S, Bagchi, M, Bak Nielsen, A, Bassa, C, Bathula, A, Berthereau, A, Bonetti, M, Bortolas, E, Brook, P, Burgay, M, Caballero, R, Chalumeau, A, Champion, D, Chanlaridis, S, Chen, S, Cognard, I, Dandapat, S, Deb, D, Desai, S, Desvignes, G, Dhanda-Batra, N, Dwivedi, C, Falxa, M, Ferranti, I, Ferdman, R, Franchini, A, Gair, J, Goncharov, B, Gopakumar, A, Graikou, E, Grießmeier, J, Guillemot, L, Guo, Y, Gupta, Y, Hisano, S, Hu, H, Iraci, F, Izquierdo-Villalba, D, Jang, J, Jawor, J, Janssen, G, Jessner, A, Joshi, B, Kareem, F, Karuppusamy, R, Keane, E, Keith, M, Kharbanda, D, Kikunaga, T, Kolhe, N, Kramer, M, Krishnakumar, M, Lackeos, K, Lee, K, Liu, K, Liu, Y, Lyne, A, Mckee, J, Maan, Y, Main, R, Manzini, S, Mickaliger, M, Nitu, I, Nobleson, K, Paladi, A, Parthasarathy, A, Perera, B, Perrodin, D, Petiteau, A, Porayko, N, Possenti, A, Prabu, T, Quelquejay Leclere, H, Rana, P, Samajdar, A, Sanidas, S, Sesana, A, Shaifullah, G, Singha, J, Speri, L, Spiewak, R, Srivastava, A, Stappers, B, Surnis, M, Susarla, S, Susobhanan, A, Takahashi, K, Tarafdar, P, Theureau, G, Tiburzi, C, van der Wateren, E, Vecchio, A, Venkatraman Krishnan, V, Verbiest, J, Wang, J, Wang, L, Wu, Z, J. Antoniadis, P. Arumugam, S. Arumugam, S. Babak, M. Bagchi, A. S. Bak Nielsen, C. G. Bassa, A. Bathula, A. Berthereau, M. Bonetti, E. Bortolas, P. R. Brook, M. Burgay, R. N. Caballero, A. Chalumeau, D. J. Champion, S. Chanlaridis, S. Chen, I. Cognard, S. Dandapat, D. Deb, S. Desai, G. Desvignes, N. Dhanda-Batra, C. Dwivedi, M. Falxa, I. Ferranti, R. D. Ferdman, A. Franchini, J. R. Gair, B. Goncharov, A. Gopakumar, E. Graikou, J. M. Grießmeier, L. Guillemot, Y. J. Guo, Y. Gupta, S. Hisano, H. Hu, F. Iraci, D. Izquierdo-Villalba, J. Jang, J. Jawor, G. H. Janssen, A. Jessner, B. C. Joshi, F. Kareem, R. Karuppusamy, E. F. Keane, M. J. Keith, D. Kharbanda, T. Kikunaga, N. Kolhe, M. Kramer, M. A. Krishnakumar, K. Lackeos, K. J. Lee, K. Liu, Y. Liu, A. G. Lyne, J. W. McKee, Y. Maan, R. A. Main, S. Manzini, M. B. Mickaliger, I. C. Nitu, K. Nobleson, A. K. Paladi, A. Parthasarathy, B. B. P. Perera, D. Perrodin, A. Petiteau, N. K. Porayko, A. Possenti, T. Prabu, H. Quelquejay Leclere, P. Rana, A. Samajdar, S. A. Sanidas, A. Sesana, G. Shaifullah, J. Singha, L. Speri, R. Spiewak, A. Srivastava, B. W. Stappers, M. Surnis, S. C. Susarla, A. Susobhanan, K. Takahashi, P. Tarafdar, G. Theureau, C. Tiburzi, E. van der Wateren, A. Vecchio, V. Venkatraman Krishnan, J. P. W. Verbiest, J. Wang, L. Wang, Z. Wu, Antoniadis, J, Arumugam, P, Arumugam, S, Babak, S, Bagchi, M, Bak Nielsen, A, Bassa, C, Bathula, A, Berthereau, A, Bonetti, M, Bortolas, E, Brook, P, Burgay, M, Caballero, R, Chalumeau, A, Champion, D, Chanlaridis, S, Chen, S, Cognard, I, Dandapat, S, Deb, D, Desai, S, Desvignes, G, Dhanda-Batra, N, Dwivedi, C, Falxa, M, Ferranti, I, Ferdman, R, Franchini, A, Gair, J, Goncharov, B, Gopakumar, A, Graikou, E, Grießmeier, J, Guillemot, L, Guo, Y, Gupta, Y, Hisano, S, Hu, H, Iraci, F, Izquierdo-Villalba, D, Jang, J, Jawor, J, Janssen, G, Jessner, A, Joshi, B, Kareem, F, Karuppusamy, R, Keane, E, Keith, M, Kharbanda, D, Kikunaga, T, Kolhe, N, Kramer, M, Krishnakumar, M, Lackeos, K, Lee, K, Liu, K, Liu, Y, Lyne, A, Mckee, J, Maan, Y, Main, R, Manzini, S, Mickaliger, M, Nitu, I, Nobleson, K, Paladi, A, Parthasarathy, A, Perera, B, Perrodin, D, Petiteau, A, Porayko, N, Possenti, A, Prabu, T, Quelquejay Leclere, H, Rana, P, Samajdar, A, Sanidas, S, Sesana, A, Shaifullah, G, Singha, J, Speri, L, Spiewak, R, Srivastava, A, Stappers, B, Surnis, M, Susarla, S, Susobhanan, A, Takahashi, K, Tarafdar, P, Theureau, G, Tiburzi, C, van der Wateren, E, Vecchio, A, Venkatraman Krishnan, V, Verbiest, J, Wang, J, Wang, L, Wu, Z, J. Antoniadis, P. Arumugam, S. Arumugam, S. Babak, M. Bagchi, A. S. Bak Nielsen, C. G. Bassa, A. Bathula, A. Berthereau, M. Bonetti, E. Bortolas, P. R. Brook, M. Burgay, R. N. Caballero, A. Chalumeau, D. J. Champion, S. Chanlaridis, S. Chen, I. Cognard, S. Dandapat, D. Deb, S. Desai, G. Desvignes, N. Dhanda-Batra, C. Dwivedi, M. Falxa, I. Ferranti, R. D. Ferdman, A. Franchini, J. R. Gair, B. Goncharov, A. Gopakumar, E. Graikou, J. M. Grießmeier, L. Guillemot, Y. J. Guo, Y. Gupta, S. Hisano, H. Hu, F. Iraci, D. Izquierdo-Villalba, J. Jang, J. Jawor, G. H. Janssen, A. Jessner, B. C. Joshi, F. Kareem, R. Karuppusamy, E. F. Keane, M. J. Keith, D. Kharbanda, T. Kikunaga, N. Kolhe, M. Kramer, M. A. Krishnakumar, K. Lackeos, K. J. Lee, K. Liu, Y. Liu, A. G. Lyne, J. W. McKee, Y. Maan, R. A. Main, S. Manzini, M. B. Mickaliger, I. C. Nitu, K. Nobleson, A. K. Paladi, A. Parthasarathy, B. B. P. Perera, D. Perrodin, A. Petiteau, N. K. Porayko, A. Possenti, T. Prabu, H. Quelquejay Leclere, P. Rana, A. Samajdar, S. A. Sanidas, A. Sesana, G. Shaifullah, J. Singha, L. Speri, R. Spiewak, A. Srivastava, B. W. Stappers, M. Surnis, S. C. Susarla, A. Susobhanan, K. Takahashi, P. Tarafdar, G. Theureau, C. Tiburzi, E. van der Wateren, A. Vecchio, V. Venkatraman Krishnan, J. P. W. Verbiest, J. Wang, L. Wang, and Z. Wu

Abstract

We present the results of a search for continuous gravitational wave signals (CGWs) in the second data release (DR2) of the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) collaboration. The most significant candidate event from this search has a gravitational wave frequency of 4-5 nHz. Such a signal could be generated by a supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) in the local Universe. We present the results of a follow-up analysis of this candidate using both Bayesian and frequentist methods. The Bayesian analysis gives a Bayes factor of 4 in favor of the presence of the CGW over a common uncorrelated noise process, while the frequentist analysis estimates the p-value of the candidate to be 1%, also assuming the presence of common uncorrelated red noise. However, comparing a model that includes both a CGW and a gravitational wave background (GWB) to a GWB only, the Bayes factor in favour of the CGW model is only 0.7. Therefore, we cannot conclusively determine the origin of the observed feature, but we cannot rule it out as a CGW source. We present results of simulations that demonstrate that data containing a weak gravitational wave background can be misinterpreted as data including a CGW and vice versa, providing two plausible explanations of the EPTA DR2 data. Further investigations combining data from all PTA collaborations will be needed to reveal the true origin of this feature.

38. The impact of solar wind variability on pulsar timing

Author

R.-J. Dettmar, Cees Bassa, Gottfried Mann, Caterina Tiburzi, J. Y. Donner, N. K. Porayko, E. van der Wateren, A.-S. Bak Nielsen, Pietro Zucca, Richard Fallows, Jean-Mathias Grießmeier, James M. Anderson, Marcus Brüggen, Christian Vocks, J. Künsemöller, Benedetta Ciardi, Matthias Hoeft, Evan Keane, Gemma H. Janssen, Stefan Oslowski, M. Serylak, G. Shaifullah, Michael Kramer, R. A. Main, Joris P. W. Verbiest, Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace (LPC2E), Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers en région Centre (OSUC), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National d’Études Spatiales [Paris] (CNES), Unité Scientifique de la Station de Nançay (USN), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers en région Centre (OSUC), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université d'Orléans (UO), Tiburzi, C, Shaifullah, G, Bassa, C, Zucca, P, Verbiest, J, Porayko, N, Van Der Wateren, E, Fallows, R, Main, R, Janssen, G, Anderson, J, Bak Nielsen, A, Donner, J, Keane, E, Kunsemoller, J, Oslowski, S, Griessmeier, J, Serylak, M, Bruggen, M, Ciardi, B, Dettmar, R, Hoeft, M, Kramer, M, Mann, G, and Vocks, C

Subjects
Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Astronomy, FOS: Physical sciences, Context (language use), Astrophysics, 01 natural sciences, Spherical model, Pulsar, pulsars: general, 0103 physical sciences, 010303 astronomy & astrophysics, ISM: general, High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE), Physics, 010308 nuclear & particles physics, Gravitational wave, Astronomy and Astrophysics, LOFAR, Solar wind, Amplitude, solar wind, gravitational waves, 13. Climate action, Space and Planetary Science, [PHYS.ASTR]Physics [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph], Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, Radio wave
Abstract

High-precision pulsar timing requires accurate corrections for dispersive delays of radio waves, parametrized by the dispersion measure (DM), particularly if these delays are variable in time. In a previous paper we studied the Solar-wind (SW) models used in pulsar timing to mitigate the excess of DM annually induced by the SW, and found these to be insufficient for high-precision pulsar timing. Here we analyze additional pulsar datasets to further investigate which aspects of the SW models currently used in pulsar timing can be readily improved, and at what levels of timing precision SW mitigation is possible. Our goals are to verify: a) whether the data are better described by a spherical model of the SW with a time-variable amplitude rather than a time-invariant one as suggested in literature, b) whether a temporal trend of such a model's amplitudes can be detected. We use the pulsar-timing technique on low-frequency pulsar observations to estimate the DM and quantify how this value changes as the Earth moves around the Sun. Specifically, we monitor the DM in weekly to monthly observations of 14 pulsars taken with LOFAR across time spans of up to 6 years. We develop an informed algorithm to separate the interstellar variations in DM from those caused by the SW and demonstrate the functionality of this algorithm with extensive simulations. Assuming a spherically symmetric model for the SW density, we derive the amplitude of this model for each year of observations. We show that a spherical model with time-variable amplitude models the observations better than a spherical model with constant amplitude, but that both approaches leave significant SW induced delays uncorrected in a number of pulsars in the sample. The amplitude of the spherical model is found to be variable in time, as opposed to what has been previously suggested., 14 pages, 9 figures. Accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysics

Published
2021
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39. Common-red-signal analysis with 24-yr high-precision timing of the European Pulsar Timing Array: inferences in the stochastic gravitational-wave background search

Author

Cees Bassa, J. W. McKee, A.-S. Bak Nielsen, E. van der Wateren, J. Wang, Antoine Petiteau, Andrea Possenti, Mitchell B. Mickaliger, Alberto Sesana, Kejia Lee, Delphine Perrodin, E. Graikou, Lan Wang, A. Chalumeau, R. N. Caballero, Kang Liu, Caterina Tiburzi, N. K. Porayko, Siyuan Chen, H. Xu, Alberto Vecchio, H. Hu, M. Falxa, Gemma H. Janssen, X. J. Liu, Ramesh Karuppusamy, John Antoniadis, David Champion, Ismaël Cognard, Michael Kramer, Benetge Perera, Gregory Desvignes, Stanislav Babak, Aditya Parthasarathy, Gilles Theureau, Y J Guo, L. Speri, Lucas Guillemot, Robert D. Ferdman, S. A. Sanidas, Paulo C. C. Freire, Michael Keith, Ben Stappers, J. Jang, Jonathan R. Gair, A. Berthereau, Andrew Lyne, G. Shaifullah, A. Samajdar, R. A. Main, M. Burgay, Joris P. W. Verbiest, RUS, Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace (LPC2E), Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers en région Centre (OSUC), Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Centre National d’Études Spatiales [Paris] (CNES), Unité Scientifique de la Station de Nançay (USN), Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Institut national des sciences de l'Univers (INSU - CNRS)-Observatoire des Sciences de l'Univers en région Centre (OSUC), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université d'Orléans (UO), AstroParticule et Cosmologie (APC (UMR_7164)), Commissariat à l'énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives (CEA)-Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particules du CNRS (IN2P3)-Observatoire de Paris, Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université de Paris (UP), Laboratoire d'études spatiales et d'instrumentation en astrophysique (LESIA (UMR_8109)), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Sorbonne Université (SU)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Laboratoire Univers et Théories (LUTH (UMR_8102)), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université d'Orléans (UO)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)-Université Paris Cité (UPCité), Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris sciences et lettres (PSL)-Université Paris Diderot - Paris 7 (UPD7)-Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), ANR-18-CE31-0015,PTA-France,Recherche d'ondes gravitationnelles avec un réseau de pulsars en France(2018), Chen, S, Caballero, R, Guo, Y, Chalumeau, A, Liu, K, Shaifullah, G, Lee, K, Babak, S, Desvignes, G, Parthasarathy, A, Hu, H, Van Der Wateren, E, Antoniadis, J, Bak Nielsen, A, Bassa, C, Berthereau, A, Burgay, M, Champion, D, Cognard, I, Falxa, M, Ferdman, R, Freire, P, Gair, J, Graikou, E, Guillemot, L, Jang, J, Janssen, G, Karuppusamy, R, Keith, M, Kramer, M, Liu, X, Lyne, A, Main, R, Mckee, J, Mickaliger, M, Perera, B, Perrodin, D, Petiteau, A, Porayko, N, Possenti, A, Samajdar, A, Sanidas, S, Sesana, A, Speri, L, Stappers, B, Theureau, G, Tiburzi, C, Vecchio, A, Verbiest, J, Wang, J, Wang, L, and Xu, H

Subjects
Spatial correlation, General relativity, Astronomy, Astrophysics, 01 natural sciences, Gravitational wave background, Pulsar, Millisecond pulsar, pulsars: general, 0103 physical sciences, gravitational wave, 010303 astronomy & astrophysics, Physics, Spectral index, [SDU.ASTR]Sciences of the Universe [physics]/Astrophysics [astro-ph], 010308 nuclear & particles physics, Astronomy and Astrophysics, methods: data analysis, European Pulsar Timing Array, Amplitude, gravitational waves, Space and Planetary Science, [SDU]Sciences of the Universe [physics], Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, methods: data analysi, Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Abstract

We present results from the search for a stochastic gravitational-wave background (GWB) as predicted by the theory of General Relativity using six radio millisecond pulsars from the Data Release 2 (DR2) of the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) covering a timespan up to 24 years. A GWB manifests itself as a long-term low-frequency stochastic signal common to all pulsars, a common red signal (CRS), with the characteristic Hellings-Downs (HD) spatial correlation. Our analysis is performed with two independent pipelines, \eprise{} and \tn{}+\ftwo{}, which produce consistent results. A search for a CRS with simultaneous estimation of its spatial correlations yields spectral properties compatible with theoretical GWB predictions, but does not result in the required measurement of the HD correlation, as required for GWB detection. Further Bayesian model comparison between different types of CRSs, including a GWB, finds the most favoured model to be the common uncorrelated red noise described by a power-law with $A = 5.13_{-2.73}^{+4.20} \times 10^{-15}$ and $\gamma = 3.78_{-0.59}^{+0.69}$ (95\% credible regions). Fixing the spectral index to $\gamma=13/3$ as expected from the GWB by circular, inspiralling supermassive black-hole binaries results in an amplitude of $A =2.95_{-0.72}^{+0.89} \times 10^{-15}$. We implement three different models, BAYESEPHEM, LINIMOSS and EPHEMGP, to address possible Solar-system ephemeris (SSE) systematics and conclude that our results may only marginally depend on these effects. This work builds on the methods and models from the studies on the EPTA DR1. We show that under the same analysis framework the results remain consistent after the data set extension., Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures, 7 tables, 2 appendix tables and 1 appendix figure

Published
2021
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