No Arabic abstract
In this paper, we describe the International Pulsar Timing Array second data release, which includes recent pulsar timing data obtained by three regional consortia: the European Pulsar Timing Array, the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves, and the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array. We analyse and where possible combine high-precision timing data for 65 millisecond pulsars which are regularly observed by these groups. A basic noise analysis, including the processes which are both correlated and uncorrelated in time, provides noise models and timing ephemerides for the pulsars. We find that the timing precisions of pulsars are generally improved compared to the previous data release, mainly due to the addition of new data in the combination. The main purpose of this work is to create the most up-to-date IPTA data release. These data are publicly available for searches for low-frequency gravitational waves and other pulsar science.
The main goal of pulsar timing array experiments is to detect correlated signals such as nanohertz-frequency gravitational waves. Pulsar timing data collected in dense monitoring campaigns can also be used to study the stars themselves, their binary companions, and the intervening ionised interstellar medium. Timing observations are extraordinarily sensitive to changes in path length between the pulsar and the Earth, enabling precise measurements of the pulsar positions, distances and velocities, and the shapes of their orbits. Here we present a timing analysis of 25 pulsars observed as part of the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) project over time spans of up to 24 yr. The data are from the second data release of the PPTA, which we have extended by including legacy data. We make the first detection of Shapiro delay in four Southern pulsars (PSRs J1017$-$7156, J1125$-$6014, J1545$-$4550, and J1732$-$5049), and of parallax in six pulsars. The prominent Shapiro delay of PSR J1125$-$6014 implies a neutron star mass of $M_p = 1.5 pm 0.2 M_odot$ (68% credibility interval). Measurements of both Shapiro delay and relativistic periastron advance in PSR J1600$-$3053 yield a large but uncertain pulsar mass of $M_p = 2.06^{+0.44}_{-0.41}$ M$_odot$ (68% credibility interval). We measure the distance to PSR J1909$-$3744 to a precision of 10 lyr, indicating that for gravitational wave periods over a decade, the pulsar provides a coherent baseline for pulsar timing array experiments.
The highly stable spin of neutron stars can be exploited for a variety of (astro-)physical investigations. In particular arrays of pulsars with rotational periods of the order of milliseconds can be used to detect correlated signals such as those caused by gravitational waves. Three such Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) have been set up around the world over the past decades and collectively form the International PTA (IPTA). In this paper, we describe the first joint analysis of the data from the three regional PTAs, i.e. of the first IPTA data set. We describe the available PTA data, the approach presently followed for its combination and suggest improvements for future PTA research. Particular attention is paid to subtle details (such as underestimation of measurement uncertainty and long-period noise) that have often been ignored but which become important in this unprecedentedly large and inhomogeneous data set. We identify and describe in detail several factors that complicate IPTA research and provide recommendations for future pulsar timing efforts. The first IPTA data release presented here (and available online) is used to demonstrate the IPTAs potential of improving upon gravitational-wave limits placed by individual PTAs by a factor of ~2 and provides a 2-sigma limit on the dimensionless amplitude of a stochastic GWB of 1.7x10^{-15} at a frequency of 1 yr^{-1}. This is 1.7 times less constraining than the limit placed by (Shannon et al. 2015), due mostly to the more recent, high-quality data they used.
We describe 14 years of public data from the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA), an ongoing project that is producing precise measurements of pulse times of arrival from 26 millisecond pulsars using the 64-m Parkes radio telescope with a cadence of approximately three weeks in three observing bands. A comprehensive description of the pulsar observing systems employed at the telescope since 2004 is provided, including the calibration methodology and an analysis of the stability of system components. We attempt to provide full accounting of the reduction from the raw measured Stokes parameters to pulse times of arrival to aid third parties in reproducing our results. This conversion is encapsulated in a processing pipeline designed to track provenance. Our data products include pulse times of arrival for each of the pulsars along with an initial set of pulsar parameters and noise models. The calibrated pulse profiles and timing template profiles are also available. These data represent almost 21,000 hrs of recorded data spanning over 14 years. After accounting for processes that induce time-correlated noise, 22 of the pulsars have weighted root-mean-square timing residuals of < 1 ${mu}$s in at least one radio band. The data should allow end users to quickly undertake their own gravitational-wave analyses (for example) without having to understand the intricacies of pulsar polarisation calibration or attain a mastery of radio-frequency interference mitigation as is required when analysing raw data files.
We search for isotropic stochastic gravitational-wave background (SGWB) in the International Pulsar Timing Array second data release. By modeling the SGWB as a power-law, we find very strong Bayesian evidence for a common-spectrum process, and further this process has scalar transverse (ST) correlations allowed in general metric theory of gravity as the Bayes factor in favor of the ST-correlated process versus the spatially uncorrelated common-spectrum process is $30pm 2$. The median and the $90%$ equal-tail amplitudes of ST mode are $mathcal{A}_{mathrm{ST}}= 1.29^{+0.51}_{-0.44} times 10^{-15}$, or equivalently the energy density parameter per logarithm frequency is $Omega_{mathrm{GW}}^{mathrm{ST}} = 2.31^{+2.19}_{-1.30} times 10^{-9}$, at frequency of 1/year. However, we do not find any statistically significant evidence for the tensor transverse (TT) mode and then place the $95%$ upper limits as $mathcal{A}_{mathrm{TT}}< 3.95 times 10^{-15}$, or equivalently $Omega_{mathrm{GW}}^{mathrm{TT}}< 2.16 times 10^{-9}$, at frequency of 1/year.
We search for isotropic stochastic gravitational-wave background including non-tensorial polarizations allowed in general metric theories of gravity in the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) second data release (DR2). We find no statistically significant evidence that the common process reported by the PPTA collaboration has the tensor transverse (TT), scalar transverse (ST), vector longitudinal (VL), or scalar longitudinal (SL) correlations in PPTA DR2. Therefore, we place $95%$ upper limit on the amplitude of each polarization mode as $mathcal{A}_{mathrm{TT}} lesssim 3.2times 10^{-15}$, $mathcal{A}_{mathrm{ST}} lesssim 1.8times 10^{-15}$, $mathcal{A}_{mathrm{VL}}lesssim 3.5times 10^{-16}$ and $mathcal{A}_{mathrm{SL}}lesssim 4.2times 10^{-17}$; or equivalently, the $95%$ upper limit on the energy density parameter per logarithm frequency as $Omega_{mathrm{GW}}^{mathrm{TT}} lesssim 1.4times 10^{-8}$, $Omega_{mathrm{GW}}^{mathrm{ST}} lesssim 4.5times 10^{-9}$, $Omega_{mathrm{GW}}^{mathrm{VL}} lesssim 1.7times 10^{-10}$ and $Omega_{mathrm{GW}}^{mathrm{SL}} lesssim 2.4times 10^{-12}$ at frequency of 1/year.