Testing General Relativity with Pulsar Timing Arrays

Autor/innen

  • Sydney Chamberlin Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI
  • Xavier Siemens Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17307/wsc.v0i0.39

Abstract

Pulsar timing arrays are a promising tool for probing the universe through gravitational radiation. A variety of astrophysical and cosmological sources are expected to contribute to a stochastic background of gravitational waves (GWs) in the pulsar timing array (PTA) frequency band. Direct detection of GWs will provide a new mechanism to test General Relativity and requires the development of robust statistical detection strategies. Here, we investigate the overlap reduction function, a term present in the optimal detection statistic, for GWs in various metric theories of gravity. We show that PTA sensitivity increases for non-transverse gravitational waves when pulsar pairs have small angular separations in the sky. 

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Zitationsvorschlag

Chamberlin, S., & Siemens, X. (2012). Testing General Relativity with Pulsar Timing Arrays. Proceedings of the Wisconsin Space Conference. https://doi.org/10.17307/wsc.v0i0.39

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Rubrik

Astronomy and Cosmology