Optimal strategies for continuous wave detection in pulsar timing arrays: Realistic pulsar noise and a gravitational wave background
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2025
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| author | Sardesai, Shashwat C. Freedman, Gabriel E. Vigeland, Sarah J. Witt, Caitlin A. |
| author_facet | Sardesai, Shashwat C. Freedman, Gabriel E. Vigeland, Sarah J. Witt, Caitlin A. |
| contents | Pulsar timing arrays are sensitive to low-frequency gravitational waves (GWs), such as those produced by supermassive binary black holes at subparsec separations. The incoherent superposition of GWs emitted by a cosmological population of these sources produces a gravitational wave background (GWB), while some individual sources may be resolvable as deterministic signals with slowly varying GW frequencies, which are often referred to as "continuous waves" (CWs). The Fp-statistic is a frequentist method of detecting these CWs. In this paper, we study how the presence of pulsar red noise and a GWB affect the Fp-statistic. We compare results when marginalizing over the red noise and using the maximum-likelihood values of the red noise, and find little difference between the two. We also present results of using the Fp-statistic to analyze the NANOGrav 12.5-year data set, where we find no evidence for CWs in agreement with the previously published Bayesian results. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_01919 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Optimal strategies for continuous wave detection in pulsar timing arrays: Realistic pulsar noise and a gravitational wave background Sardesai, Shashwat C. Freedman, Gabriel E. Vigeland, Sarah J. Witt, Caitlin A. High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Pulsar timing arrays are sensitive to low-frequency gravitational waves (GWs), such as those produced by supermassive binary black holes at subparsec separations. The incoherent superposition of GWs emitted by a cosmological population of these sources produces a gravitational wave background (GWB), while some individual sources may be resolvable as deterministic signals with slowly varying GW frequencies, which are often referred to as "continuous waves" (CWs). The Fp-statistic is a frequentist method of detecting these CWs. In this paper, we study how the presence of pulsar red noise and a GWB affect the Fp-statistic. We compare results when marginalizing over the red noise and using the maximum-likelihood values of the red noise, and find little difference between the two. We also present results of using the Fp-statistic to analyze the NANOGrav 12.5-year data set, where we find no evidence for CWs in agreement with the previously published Bayesian results. |
| title | Optimal strategies for continuous wave detection in pulsar timing arrays: Realistic pulsar noise and a gravitational wave background |
| topic | High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.01919 |