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NANOGrav 15-year gravitational-wave background methods

Lookup NU author(s): Dr Anne ArchibaldORCiD

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Abstract

© 2024 American Physical Society. American Physical Society.Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) use an array of millisecond pulsars to search for gravitational waves in the nanohertz regime in pulse time of arrival data. This paper presents rigorous tests of PTA methods, examining their consistency across the relevant parameter space. We discuss updates to the 15-year isotropic gravitational-wave background analyses and their corresponding code representations. Descriptions of the internal structure of the flagship algorithms enterprise and ptmcmcsampler are given to facilitate understanding of the PTA likelihood structure, how models are built, and what methods are currently used in sampling the high-dimensional PTA parameter space. We introduce a novel version of the PTA likelihood that uses a two-step marginalization procedure that performs much faster in gravitational wave searches, reducing the required resources facilitating the computation of Bayes factors via thermodynamic integration and sampling a large number of realizations for computing Bayesian false-alarm probabilities. We perform stringent tests of consistency and correctness of the Bayesian and frequentist analysis methods. For the Bayesian analysis, we test prior recovery, simulation recovery, and Bayes factors. For the frequentist analysis, we test that the optimal statistic, when modified to account for a non-negligible gravitational-wave background, accurately recovers the amplitude of the background. We also summarize recent advances and tests performed on the optimal statistic in the literature from both gravitational wave background detection and parameter estimation perspectives. The tests presented here validate current analyses of PTA data.

Publication metadata

Author(s): Johnson AD, Meyers PM, Baker PT, Cornish NJ, Hazboun JS, Littenberg TB, Romano JD, Taylor SR, Vallisneri M, Vigeland SJ, Olum KD, Siemens X, Ellis JA, Van Haasteren R, Hourihane S, Agazie G, Anumarlapudi A, Archibald AM, Arzoumanian Z, Blecha L, Brazier A, Brook PR, Burke-Spolaor S, Becsy B, Casey-Clyde JA, Charisi M, Chatterjee S, Chatziioannou K, Cohen T, Cordes JM, Crawford F, Cromartie HT, Crowter K, Decesar ME, Demorest PB, Dolch T, Drachler B, Ferrara EC, Fiore W, Fonseca E, Freedman GE, Garver-Daniels N, Gentile PA, Glaser J, Good DC, Gultekin K, Jennings RJ, Jones ML, Kaiser AR, Kaplan DL, Kelley LZ, Kerr M, Key JS, Laal N, Lam MT, Lamb WG, Lazio TJW, Lewandowska N, Liu T, Lorimer DR, Luo J, Lynch RS, Ma C-P, Madison DR, McEwen A, McKee JW, McLaughlin MA, McMann N, Meyers BW, Mingarelli CMF, Mitridate A, Ng C, Nice DJ, Ocker SK, Pennucci TT, Perera BBP, Pol NS, Radovan HA, Ransom SM, Ray PS, Sardesai SC, Schmiedekamp C, Schmiedekamp A, Schmitz K, Shapiro-Albert BJ, Simon J, Siwek MS, Stairs IH, Stinebring DR, Stovall K, Susobhanan A, Swiggum JK, Turner JE, Unal C, Wahl HM, Witt CA, Young O

Publication type: Article

Publication status: Published

Journal: Physical Review D

Year: 2024

Volume: 109

Issue: 10

Print publication date: 15/05/2024

Online publication date: 09/05/2024

Acceptance date: 21/03/2024

ISSN (print): 2470-0010

ISSN (electronic): 2470-0029

Publisher: American Physical Society

URL: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.109.103012

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.109.103012

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