The NANOGrav 15-Year Data Set: Improved Timing Precision With VLBI Astrometric Priors
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arXiv
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| Natura: | Preprint |
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2025
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| author | Fiscella, Sofia V. Sosa Lam, Michael T. Agazie, Gabriella Anumarlapudi, Akash Archibald, Anne M. Arzoumanian, Zaven Baker, Paul T. Brook, Paul R. Cromartie, H. Thankful Crowter, Kathryn De Biasi, Maria Silvina DeCesar, Megan E. Demorest, Paul B. Dolch, Timothy Ferrara, Elizabeth C. Fiore, William Fonseca, Emmanuel Freedman, Gabriel E. Garver-Daniels, Nate Gentile, Peter A. Glaser, Joseph Good, Deborah C. Hazboun, Jeffrey S. Jennings, Ross J. Jones, Megan L. Kaplan, David L. Kerr, Matthew Lorimer, Duncan R. Luo, Jing Lynch, Ryan S. McEwen, Alexander McLaughlin, Maura A. McMann, Natasha Meyers, Bradley W. Ng, Cherry Nice, David J. Pennucci, Timothy T. Perera, Benetge B. P. Pol, Nihan S. Radovan, Henri A. Ransom, Scott M. Ray, Paul S. Schmiedekamp, Ann Schmiedekamp, Carl Shapiro-Albert, Brent J. Stairs, Ingrid H. Stovall, Kevin Susobhanan, Abhimanyu Swiggum, Joseph K. Wahl, Haley M. |
| author_facet | Fiscella, Sofia V. Sosa Lam, Michael T. Agazie, Gabriella Anumarlapudi, Akash Archibald, Anne M. Arzoumanian, Zaven Baker, Paul T. Brook, Paul R. Cromartie, H. Thankful Crowter, Kathryn De Biasi, Maria Silvina DeCesar, Megan E. Demorest, Paul B. Dolch, Timothy Ferrara, Elizabeth C. Fiore, William Fonseca, Emmanuel Freedman, Gabriel E. Garver-Daniels, Nate Gentile, Peter A. Glaser, Joseph Good, Deborah C. Hazboun, Jeffrey S. Jennings, Ross J. Jones, Megan L. Kaplan, David L. Kerr, Matthew Lorimer, Duncan R. Luo, Jing Lynch, Ryan S. McEwen, Alexander McLaughlin, Maura A. McMann, Natasha Meyers, Bradley W. Ng, Cherry Nice, David J. Pennucci, Timothy T. Perera, Benetge B. P. Pol, Nihan S. Radovan, Henri A. Ransom, Scott M. Ray, Paul S. Schmiedekamp, Ann Schmiedekamp, Carl Shapiro-Albert, Brent J. Stairs, Ingrid H. Stovall, Kevin Susobhanan, Abhimanyu Swiggum, Joseph K. Wahl, Haley M. |
| contents | Accurate pulsar astrometric estimates play an essential role in almost all high-precision pulsar timing experiments. Traditional pulsar timing techniques refine these estimates by including them as free parameters when fitting a model to observed pulse time-of-arrival measurements. However, reliable sub-milliarcsecond astrometric estimations require years of observations and, even then, power from red noise can be inadvertently absorbed into astrometric parameter fits, biasing the resulting estimations and reducing our sensitivity to red noise processes, including gravitational waves (GWs). In this work, we seek to mitigate these shortcomings by using pulsar astrometric estimates derived from Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) as priors for the timing fit. First, we calibrated a frame tie to account for the offsets between the reference frames used in VLBI and timing. Then, we used the VLBI-informed priors and timing-based likelihoods of several astrometric solutions consistent with both techniques to obtain a maximum-posterior astrometric solution. We found offsets between our results and the timing-based astrometric solutions, which, if real, would lead to absorption of spectral power at frequencies of interest for single-source GW searches. However, we do not find significant power absorption due to astrometric fitting at the low-frequency domain of the GW background. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2509_21203 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The NANOGrav 15-Year Data Set: Improved Timing Precision With VLBI Astrometric Priors Fiscella, Sofia V. Sosa Lam, Michael T. Agazie, Gabriella Anumarlapudi, Akash Archibald, Anne M. Arzoumanian, Zaven Baker, Paul T. Brook, Paul R. Cromartie, H. Thankful Crowter, Kathryn De Biasi, Maria Silvina DeCesar, Megan E. Demorest, Paul B. Dolch, Timothy Ferrara, Elizabeth C. Fiore, William Fonseca, Emmanuel Freedman, Gabriel E. Garver-Daniels, Nate Gentile, Peter A. Glaser, Joseph Good, Deborah C. Hazboun, Jeffrey S. Jennings, Ross J. Jones, Megan L. Kaplan, David L. Kerr, Matthew Lorimer, Duncan R. Luo, Jing Lynch, Ryan S. McEwen, Alexander McLaughlin, Maura A. McMann, Natasha Meyers, Bradley W. Ng, Cherry Nice, David J. Pennucci, Timothy T. Perera, Benetge B. P. Pol, Nihan S. Radovan, Henri A. Ransom, Scott M. Ray, Paul S. Schmiedekamp, Ann Schmiedekamp, Carl Shapiro-Albert, Brent J. Stairs, Ingrid H. Stovall, Kevin Susobhanan, Abhimanyu Swiggum, Joseph K. Wahl, Haley M. High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Accurate pulsar astrometric estimates play an essential role in almost all high-precision pulsar timing experiments. Traditional pulsar timing techniques refine these estimates by including them as free parameters when fitting a model to observed pulse time-of-arrival measurements. However, reliable sub-milliarcsecond astrometric estimations require years of observations and, even then, power from red noise can be inadvertently absorbed into astrometric parameter fits, biasing the resulting estimations and reducing our sensitivity to red noise processes, including gravitational waves (GWs). In this work, we seek to mitigate these shortcomings by using pulsar astrometric estimates derived from Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) as priors for the timing fit. First, we calibrated a frame tie to account for the offsets between the reference frames used in VLBI and timing. Then, we used the VLBI-informed priors and timing-based likelihoods of several astrometric solutions consistent with both techniques to obtain a maximum-posterior astrometric solution. We found offsets between our results and the timing-based astrometric solutions, which, if real, would lead to absorption of spectral power at frequencies of interest for single-source GW searches. However, we do not find significant power absorption due to astrometric fitting at the low-frequency domain of the GW background. |
| title | The NANOGrav 15-Year Data Set: Improved Timing Precision With VLBI Astrometric Priors |
| topic | High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.21203 |