Speaker
Description
Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) provide a unique opportunity to search for gravitational waves (GWs) at nanohertz frequencies, opening a new observational window on supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) and other theoretical astrophysical and cosmological sources. Recently, PTA community has announced the detection of a signal compatible with a GW origin, showing evidence for a red noise process that is common among pulsars and presenting correlation properties expected for a stochastic nano-Hertz GW background (GWB).
After a brief introduction to the general theoretical framework, I will present my research, focusing on simulation-based studies of the GWB. Results are obtained using standard PTA analysis tools such as Enterprise and Discovery, which rely respectively on Markov Chain Monte Carlo and variational inference approaches. Simulations include the use of the radio interferometer LOFAR to investigate the impact of chromatic noise on PTA datasets.
Furthermore, I will discuss searches for GWs from localized SMBHBs using the surfing effect, providing a conceptual overview of the method and its potential for PTA analyses.