On measuring the gravitational-wave background using Pulsar Timing Arrays

Haasteren, Rutger van; Levin, Y.; McDonald, Patrick; Lu, Tingting

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2009.14590.x

Cited by 161 publications

(193 citation statements)

References 25 publications

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“…The most common method is to adjust the values until the reduced-χ 2 of the fitted model reaches unity. Bayesian and other maximum likelihood methods have also recently been developed and applied to precision pulsar timing datasets (van Haasteren et al 2009;Lentati et al 2014). In these methods, EFAC and EQUAD are included as nuisance parameters and marginalised when calculating the posterior distributions of parameters of interest or comparing models.…”

Section: Including Jitter Noise In Timing Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition to providing a better model of the true TOA uncertainties, EQUAD and EFAC parameters may not need need to be modelled in timing datasets. This reduces by two the dimensionality to TOA modelling, which streamline computationally intensive Bayesian GW-search algorithms (van Haasteren et al 2009). In archival data, it may be necessary to include EFAC or EQUAD parameters to account for pulse shape distortions induced by non-linearities in instrumentation associated with low-bit digitisation.…”

Section: Including Jitter Noise In Timing Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Limitations in timing precision due to single-pulse shape variability in millisecond pulsars

Shannon

Osłowski

Dai

et al. 2014

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

118

113

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High-sensitivity radio-frequency observations of millisecond pulsars usually show stochastic, broadband, pulse-shape variations intrinsic to the pulsar emission process. These variations induce jitter noise in pulsar timing observations; understanding the properties of this noise is of particular importance for the effort to detect gravitational waves with pulsar timing arrays. We assess the short-term profile and timing stability of 22 millisecond pulsars that are part of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array sample by examining intra-observation arrival time variability and single-pulse phenomenology. In 7 of the 22 pulsars, in the band centred at approximately 1400 MHz, we find that the brightest observations are limited by intrinsic jitter. We find consistent results, either detections or upper limits, for jitter noise in other frequency bands. PSR J1909−3744 shows the lowest levels of jitter noise, which we estimate to contribute ∼ 10 ns root mean square error to the arrival times for hour-duration observations. Larger levels of jitter noise are found in pulsars with wider pulses and distributions of pulse intensities. The jitter noise in PSR J0437−4715 decorrelates over a bandwidth of ∼ 2 GHz. We show that the uncertainties associated with timing pulsar models can be improved by including physically motivated jitter uncertainties. Pulse-shape variations will limit the timing precision at future, more sensitive, telescopes; it is imperative to account for this noise when designing instrumentation and timing campaigns for these facilities.

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Section: Including Jitter Noise In Timing Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Including Jitter Noise In Timing Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Limitations in timing precision due to single-pulse shape variability in millisecond pulsars

Shannon

Osłowski

Dai

et al. 2014

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

118

113

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“…During his Ph.D. work at Leiden Observatory, Rutger van Haasteren developed from scratch a sophisticated mathematical algorithm that deals with this issue, and that is currently in active use within the PTA community (van Haasteren et al 2009, Chapter 2). Moving beyond purely theoretical work, van Haasteren studied the observational procedure in depth (which he learned partly during his first 2-month stay in Australia), and, together with Gemma Jansen (then a postdoctoral fellow at Jodrell Bank), led the joint effort of five teams of pulsar observers on the European continent, to combine their Europan Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) datasets in order to search for gravitational waves.…”

Section: Supervisor's Forewordmentioning

confidence: 99%

Gravitational Wave Detection and Data Analysis for Pulsar Timing Arrays

Haasteren

2014

Springer Theses

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“…van Kerkwijk & Kulkarni 1995). So far, for all three binary pulsars described in this paper, the most recently published limit on optical magnitude of the companion is R > 24 (van Kerkwijk et al 2005). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An instrument like this will use an array of MSPs as the endpoints of a Galaxy-scale gravitational wave (GW) detector. Current estimates predict that to detect a GW background, long-term high precision timing of about 20 MSPs is required (Jenet et al 2005;Van Haasteren et al 2009). Increasing the number of stable MSPs in the array will improve the detection significance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term timing of four millisecond pulsars

Janssen

Stappers

Bassa

et al. 2010

A&A

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We have timed four millisecond pulses, PSRs J1721−2457, J1745−0952, J1810−2005, and J1918−0642, for up to a total of 10.5 years each using multiple telescopes in the European Pulsar Timing Array network: the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in The Netherlands, the Nançay Radio Telescope in France and the Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank in the UK. The long time span has enabled us to measure the proper motions of J1745−0952 and J1918−0642, indicating that they have transverse velocities of 200 (50) and 54(7) km s −1 respectively. We have obtained upper limits on the proper motion of J1721−2457 and J1810−2005, which imply that they have transverse velocities less than 140 and 400 km s −1 respectively. In all cases, the velocities lie in the range typical of millisecond pulsars. We present pulse profiles for each pulsar taken from observations at multiple frequencies in the range of 350 to 2600 MHz, and show that J1810−2005 shows significant profile evolution in this range. Using our multi-frequency observations, we measured the spectral indices for all four pulsars, and for J1810−2005 it appears to be very flat. The flux density of J1918−0642 shows extensive modulation which we attribute to the combined effects of refractive and diffractive scintillation. We discuss the possible use of including J1721−2457 or J1918−0642 in a pulsar timing array, and find that J1918−0642 will be useful to include when the timing precision of this pulsar is improved over the next few years. We have searched archival optical observations to detect companions of the binary pulsars, but none were detected. However, we provide lower limits on the masses of the white dwarf companions of PSRs J1745−0952 and J1918−0642.

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On measuring the gravitational-wave background using Pulsar Timing Arrays

Cited by 161 publications

References 25 publications

Limitations in timing precision due to single-pulse shape variability in millisecond pulsars

Limitations in timing precision due to single-pulse shape variability in millisecond pulsars

Gravitational Wave Detection and Data Analysis for Pulsar Timing Arrays

Long-term timing of four millisecond pulsars

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