Searching for continuous Gravitational Waves in the second data release of the International Pulsar Timing Array. Issue 4 (21st March 2023)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Falxa, M; Babak, S; Baker, P T; Bécsy, B; Chalumeau, A; Chen, S; Chen, Z; Cornish, N J; Guillemot, L; Hazboun, J S; Mingarelli, C M F; Parthasarathy, A; Petiteau, A; Pol, N S; Sesana, A; Spolaor, S B; Taylor, S R; Theureau, G; Vallisneri, M; Vigeland, S J; Witt, C A; Zhu, X; Antoniadis, J; Arzoumanian, Z; Bailes, M; Bhat, N D R; Blecha, L; Brazier, A; Brook, P R; Caballero, N; Cameron, A D; Casey-Clyde, J A; Champion, D; Charisi, M; Chatterjee, S; Cognard, I; Cordes, J M; Crawford, F; Cromartie, H T; Crowter, K; Dai, S; DeCesar, M E; Demorest, P B; Desvignes, G; Dolch, T; Drachler, B; Feng, Y; Ferrara, E C; Fiore, W; Fonseca, E; Garver-Daniels, N; Glaser, J; Goncharov, B; Good, D C; Griessmeier, J; Guo, Y J; Gültekin, K; Hobbs, G; Hu, H; Islo, K; Jang, J; Jennings, R J; Johnson, A D; Jones, M L; Kaczmarek, J; Kaiser, A R; Kaplan, D L; Keith, M; Kelley, L Z; Kerr, M; Key, J S; Laal, N; Lam, M T; Lamb, W G; Lazio, T J W; Liu, K; Liu, T; Luo, J; Lynch, R S; Madison, D R; Main, R; Manchester, R; McEwen, A; McKee, J; McLaughlin, M A; Ng, C; Nice, D J; Ocker, S; Olum, K D; Osłowski, S; Pennucci, T T; Perera, B B P; Perrodin, D; Porayko, N; Possenti, A; Quelquejay-Leclere, H; Ransom, S M; Ray, P S; Reardon, D J; Russell, C J; Samajdar, A; Sarkissian, J; Schult, L; Shaifullah, G; Shannon, R M; Shapiro-Albert, B J; Siemens, X; Simon, J J; Siwek, M; Smith, T L; Speri, L; Spiewak, R; Stairs, I H; Stappers, B; Stinebring, D R; Swiggum, J K; Tiburzi, C; Turner, J; Vecchio, A; Verbiest, J P W; Wahl, H; Wang, S Q; Wang, J; Wang, J; Wu, Z; Zhang, L; Zhang, S;
• Is Part Of: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Volume 521:Issue 4(2023)
• Page Start: 5077
• Page End: 5086
• Publication Date: 2023-03-21
• Subjects: gravitational waves -- methods: data analysis -- pulsars: general; Astronomy -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 520.5
• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stad812
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0035-8711

Abstract

ABSTRACT: The International Pulsar Timing Array 2nd data release is the combination of data sets from worldwide collaborations. In this study, we search for continuous waves: gravitational wave signals produced by individual supermassive black hole binaries in the local universe. We consider binaries on circular orbits and neglect the evolution of orbital frequency over the observational span. We find no evidence for such signals and set sky averaged 95 per cent upper limits on their amplitude h 95 . The most sensitive frequency is 10 nHz with h 95 = 9.1 × 10 −15 . We achieved the best upper limit to date at low and high frequencies of the PTA band thanks to improved effective cadence of observations. In our analysis, we have taken into account the recently discovered common red noise process, which has an impact at low frequencies. We also find that the peculiar noise features present in some pulsars data must be taken into account to reduce the false alarm. We show that using custom noise models is essential in searching for continuous gravitational wave signals and setting the upper limit.