Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: We perform searches for gravitational-wave memory in the data of two major Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) experiments located in Europe and Australia. Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) are the primary sources of gravitational waves in PTA experiments. We develop and carry out the first search for late inspirals and mergers of these sources based on full numerical relativity waveforms with null (nonlinear) gravitational-wave memory. Additionally, we search for generic bursts of null gravitational-wave memory, exploring the possibilities of reducing the computational costs of these searches through kernel density estimation and normalizing flow approximations of the posteriors. We rule out mergers of SMBHBs with a chirp mass of 10 10 M ⊙ up to 700 Mpc over 18 yr of observation at 95% credibility. We rule out the observation of generic displacement memory bursts with strain amplitudes >10 −14 in brief periods of observation time but across the sky, or over the whole observation time but for certain preferred sky positions, at 95% credibility.
Authors: Sharon Mary Tomson, Boris Goncharov, Rutger van Haasteren, Rahul Srinivasan, Enrico Barausse, Yirong Wen, Jingbo Wang, John Antoniadis, N. D. Ramesh Bhat, Zu-Cheng Chen, Ismael Cognard, Valentina Di Marco, Huanchen Hu, Gemma H. Janssen, Michael Kramer, Wenhua Ling, Kuo Liu, Saurav Mishra, Delphine Perrodin, Andrea Possenti, Christopher J. Russell, Ryan M. Shannon, Gilles Theureau, Shuangqiang Wang
Institutions: Leibniz University Hannover, Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics, Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Trieste, Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory, Lishui University, FORTH Institute of Astrophysics, Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy, Foundation for Research and Technology Hellas, Curtin University, International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research, Hunan Normal University, Université d'Orléans, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université Paris Sciences et Lettres, Observatoire de Paris, Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l’Environnement et de l’Espace, Observatoire Radioastronomique de Nançay, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery, Monash University, Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Swinburne University of Technology, Osservatorio Astronomico di Cagliari, National Institute for Astrophysics
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,400
Funders: Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Université d'Orléans, Observatoire de Paris, Université de Recherche Paris Sciences et Lettres, Agencia Estatal de Investigación, H2020 European Research Council, HORIZON EUROPE European Research Council
OpenAlex ID: W4417474134