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Register a new userProbing Small-Scale Power Spectra with Pulsar Timing Arrays
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Models of Dark Matter (DM) can leave unique imprints on the Universes small scale structure by boosting density perturbations on small scales. We study the capability of Pulsar Timing Arrays to search for, and constrain, subhalos from such models. The models of DM we consider are ordinary adiabatic perturbations in $Lambda$CDM, QCD axion miniclusters, models with early matter domination, and vector DM produced during inflation. We show that $Lambda$CDM, largely due to tidal stripping effects in the Milky Way, is out of reach for PTAs (as well as every other probe proposed to detect DM small scale structure). Axion miniclusters may be within reach, although this depends crucially on whether the axion relic density is dominated by the misalignment or string contribution. Models where there is matter domination with a reheat temperature below 1 GeV may be observed with future PTAs. Lastly, vector DM produced during inflation can be detected if it is lighter than $10^{-16} ,{rm GeV}$. We also make publicly available a Python Monte Carlo tool for generating the PTA time delay signal from any model of DM substructure.
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We examine the capability of pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) to detect very small-scale clumps of dark matter (DM), which are a natural outcome of the standard cold dark matter (CDM) paradigm. A clump streaming near the Earth or a pulsar induces an impulsive acceleration to encode residuals on pulsar timing data. We show that, assuming the standard abundance of DM clumps predicted by the CDM model, small-scale DM clumps with masses from $sim 10^{-11} M_odot$ to $sim 10^{-8} M_odot$ can be detectable by a PTA observation for a few decades with ${cal O}(100)$ of pulsars with a timing noise of ${cal O}(10)$ ns located at $gtrsim 3$ kpc away from the Galactic center, as long as these mass scales are larger than the cutoff scale of the halo mass function that is determined by the particle nature of DM. Our result suggests that PTAs can provide a unique opportunity for testing one of the most fundamental predictions of the CDM paradigm. In addition, the detections and non-detections can constrain the cutoff mass scale inherent to the DM model.
We argue that the global signal of neutral hydrogen 21cm line can be a powerful probe of primordial power spectrum on small scales. Since the amplitude of small scale primordial fluctuations is important to determine the early structure formation and the timing when the sources of Lyman ${alpha}$ photons are produced, they in turn affect the neutral hydrogen 21cm line signal. We show that the information of the position of the absorption trough can severely constrain the small scale amplitude of primordial fluctuations once astrophysical parameters relevant to the 21cm line signal are fixed. We also discuss how the uncertainties of astrophysical parameters affect the constraints.
We discuss the theory of pulsar-timing and astrometry probes of a stochastic gravitational-wave background with a recently developed total-angular-momentum (TAM) formalism for cosmological perturbations. We review the formalism, emphasizing in particular the features relevant for this work and describe the observables we consider (i.e. the pulsar redshift and stellar angular displacement). Using the TAM approach, we calculate the angular power spectra for the observables and from them derive angular auto- and cross-correlation functions. We provide the full set of power spectra and correlation functions not only for the standard transverse-traceless propagating degrees of freedom in general relativity, but also for the four additional non-Einsteinian polarizations that may arise in alternative-gravity theories. We discuss how pulsar-timing and astrometry surveys can complement and serve as cross checks to one another and comment on the importance of testing the chirality of the gravitational-wave background as a tool to understand the nature of its sources. A simple rederivation of the power spectra from the plane-wave formalism is provided in an Appendix.
We perform numerical simulations of gravitational waves (GWs) induced by hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic turbulent sources that might have been present at cosmological quantum chromodynamic (QCD) phase transitions. For turbulent energies of about 4% of the radiation energy density, the typical scale of such motions may have been a sizable fraction of the Hubble scale at that time. The resulting GWs are found to have an energy fraction of about $10^{-9}$ of the critical energy density in the nHz range today and may already have been observed by the NANOGrav collaboration. This is further made possible by our findings of shallower spectra proportional to the square root of the frequency for nonhelical hydromagnetic turbulence. This implies more power at low frequencies than for the steeper spectra previously anticipated. The behavior toward higher frequencies depends strongly on the nature of the turbulence. For vortical hydrodynamic and hydromagnetic turbulence, there is a sharp drop of spectral GW energy by up to five orders of magnitude in the presence of helicity, and somewhat less in the absence of helicity. For acoustic hydrodynamic turbulence, the sharp drop is replaced by a power law decay, albeit with a rather steep slope. Our study supports earlier findings of a quadratic scaling of the GW energy with the magnetic energy of the turbulence and inverse quadratic scaling with the peak frequency, which leads to larger GW energies under QCD conditions.
Pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) are on the verge of detecting low-frequency gravitational waves (GWs) from supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs). With continued observations of a large sample of millisecond pulsars, PTAs will reach this major milestone within the next decade. Already, SMBHB candidates are being identified by electromagnetic surveys in ever-increasing numbers; upcoming surveys will enhance our ability to detect and verify candidates, and will be instrumental in identifying the host galaxies of GW sources. Multi-messenger (GW and electromagnetic) observations of SMBHBs will revolutionize our understanding of the co-evolution of SMBHs with their host galaxies, the dynamical interactions between binaries and their galactic environments, and the fundamental physics of accretion. Multi-messenger observations can also make SMBHBs standard sirens for cosmological distance measurements out to $zsimeq0.5$. LIGO has already ushered in breakthrough insights in our knowledge of black holes. The multi-messenger detection of SMBHBs with PTAs will be a breakthrough in the years $2020-2030$ and beyond, and prepare us for LISA to help complete our views of black hole demographics and evolution at higher redshifts.
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