Aaron D. Johnson
NANOGrav 15-year gravitational-wave background methods
Johnson, Aaron D.; Meyers, Patrick M.; Baker, Paul T.; Cornish, Neil J.; Hazboun, Jeffrey S.; Littenberg, Tyson B.; Romano, Joseph D.; Taylor, Stephen R.; Vallisneri, Michele; Vigeland, Sarah J.; Olum, Ken D.; Siemens, Xavier; Ellis, Justin A.; Van Haasteren, Rutger; Hourihane, Sophie; Agazie, Gabriella; Anumarlapudi, Akash; Archibald, Anne M.; Arzoumanian, Zaven; Blecha, Laura; Brazier, Adam; Brook, Paul R.; Burke-Spolaor, Sarah; Bécsy, Bence; Casey-Clyde, J. Andrew; Charisi, Maria; Chatterjee, Shami; Chatziioannou, Katerina; Cohen, Tyler; Cordes, James M.; Crawford, Fronefield; Cromartie, H. Thankful; Crowter, Kathryn; Decesar, Megan E.; Demorest, Paul B.; Dolch, Timothy; Drachler, Brendan; Ferrara, Elizabeth C.; Fiore, William; Fonseca, Emmanuel; Freedman, Gabriel E.; Garver-Daniels, Nate; Gentile, Peter A.; Glaser, Joseph; Good, Deborah C.; Gültekin, Kayhan; Jennings, Ross J.; Jones, Megan L.; Kaiser, Andrew R.; Kaplan, David L.; Kelley, Luke Zoltan; Kerr, Matthew; Key, Joey S.; La...
Authors
Patrick M. Meyers
Paul T. Baker
Neil J. Cornish
Jeffrey S. Hazboun
Tyson B. Littenberg
Joseph D. Romano
Stephen R. Taylor
Michele Vallisneri
Sarah J. Vigeland
Ken D. Olum
Xavier Siemens
Justin A. Ellis
Rutger Van Haasteren
Sophie Hourihane
Gabriella Agazie
Akash Anumarlapudi
Anne M. Archibald
Zaven Arzoumanian
Laura Blecha
Adam Brazier
Paul R. Brook
Sarah Burke-Spolaor
Bence Bécsy
J. Andrew Casey-Clyde
Maria Charisi
Shami Chatterjee
Katerina Chatziioannou
Tyler Cohen
James M. Cordes
Fronefield Crawford
H. Thankful Cromartie
Kathryn Crowter
Megan E. Decesar
Paul B. Demorest
Timothy Dolch
Brendan Drachler
Elizabeth C. Ferrara
William Fiore
Emmanuel Fonseca
Gabriel E. Freedman
Nate Garver-Daniels
Peter A. Gentile
Joseph Glaser
Deborah C. Good
Kayhan Gültekin
Ross J. Jennings
Megan L. Jones
Andrew R. Kaiser
David L. Kaplan
Luke Zoltan Kelley
Matthew Kerr
Joey S. Key
Nima Laal
Michael T. Lam
William G. Lamb
T. Joseph W. Lazio
Natalia Lewandowska
Tingting Liu
Duncan R. Lorimer
Jing Luo
Ryan S. Lynch
Chung Pei Ma
Dustin R. Madison
Alexander McEwen
James W. McKee
Maura A. McLaughlin
Natasha McMann
Bradley W. Meyers
Chiara M.F. Mingarelli
Andrea Mitridate
Cherry Ng
David J. Nice
Stella Koch Ocker
Timothy T. Pennucci
Benetge B.P. Perera
Nihan S. Pol
Henri A. Radovan
Scott M. Ransom
Paul S. Ray
Shashwat C. Sardesai
Carl Schmiedekamp
Ann Schmiedekamp
Kai Schmitz
Brent J. Shapiro-Albert
Joseph Simon
Magdalena S. Siwek
Ingrid H. Stairs
Daniel R. Stinebring
Kevin Stovall
Abhimanyu Susobhanan
Joseph K. Swiggum
Jacob E. Turner
Caner Unal
Haley M. Wahl
Caitlin A. Witt
Olivia Young
Abstract
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.
Citation
Johnson, A. D., Meyers, P. M., Baker, P. T., Cornish, N. J., Hazboun, J. S., Littenberg, T. B., Romano, J. D., Taylor, S. R., Vallisneri, M., Vigeland, S. J., Olum, K. D., Siemens, X., Ellis, J. A., Van Haasteren, R., Hourihane, S., Agazie, G., Anumarlapudi, A., Archibald, A. M., Arzoumanian, Z., Blecha, L., …Young, O. (2024). NANOGrav 15-year gravitational-wave background methods. Physical Review D, 109(10), Article 103012. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.109.103012
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Acceptance Date | Mar 21, 2024 |
Online Publication Date | May 9, 2024 |
Publication Date | May 15, 2024 |
Deposit Date | May 23, 2024 |
Publicly Available Date | May 28, 2024 |
Journal | Physical Review D |
Print ISSN | 2470-0010 |
Electronic ISSN | 2470-0029 |
Publisher | American Physical Society |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Volume | 109 |
Issue | 10 |
Article Number | 103012 |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.109.103012 |
Public URL | https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4672922 |
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Copyright Statement
©2024 American Physical Society. This paper has been published at https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.109.103012
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