3:30–4:30 pm ERC 161
Sarah Vigeland (University of Wisconsin) "Searching for a Gravitational Wave Background with Pulsar Timing Arrays"
Pulsar timing arrays use observations of millisecond pulsars to detect nanohertz gravitational waves. The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) Collaboration has recently released their 15-year data set containing observations of 68 millisecond pulsars. These data contain evidence for Hellings-Downs correlations, which are characteristic of a gravitational wave background. In this talk, I will present these results, and discuss the spectral properties of the signal and implications for the astrophysical source. I will also discuss prospects for detecting other types of gravitational wave sources with pulsar timing arrays, including individual supermassive binary black holes.
