Probing a stationary non-Gaussian background of stochastic gravitational waves with pulsar timing arrays

DOI10.1088/1475-7516/2020/01/017MaRDI QIDQ5067799zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Cari Powell, Gianmassimo Tasinato

Publication date 4 April 2022

Published in Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1910.04758, https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa53144

zbMATH Keywords

gravitational wave detectorsgravitational waves/experimentsgravitational waves/theoryprimordial gravitational waves (theory)

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Signal detection and filtering (aspects of stochastic processes) (60G35) Measures of association (correlation, canonical correlation, etc.) (62H20) Quantum measurement theory, state operations, state preparations (81P15) Axiomatic quantum field theory; operator algebras (81T05) Other elementary particle theory in quantum theory (81V25) Observational and experimental questions in relativity and gravitational theory (83B05) Gravitational waves (83C35)

Abstract: We introduce the concept of stationary graviton non-Gaussianity (nG), an observable that can be probed in terms of 3-point correlation functions of a stochastic gravitational wave (GW) background. When evaluated in momentum space, stationary nG corresponds to folded bispectra of graviton nG. We determine 3-point overlap functions for testing stationary nG with pulsar timing array GW experiments, and we obtain the corresponding optimal signal-to-noise ratio. For the first time, we consider 3-point overlap functions including scalar graviton polarizations (which can be motivated in theories of modified gravity); moreover, we also calculate 3-point overlap functions for correlating pulsar timing array with ground based GW detectors. The value of the optimal signal-to-noise ratio depends on the number and position of monitored pulsars. We build geometrical quantities characterizing how such ratio depends on the pulsar system under consideration, and we evaluate these geometrical parameters using data from the IPTA collaboration. We quantitatively show how monitoring a large number of pulsars can increase the signal-to-noise ratio associated with measurements of stationary graviton nG.

Cites work

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Cited in

(3)

• Primordial stochastic gravitational wave background anisotropies: in-in formalization and applications
• Testing the early universe with anisotropies of the gravitational wave background
• The PTA Hellings and Downs correlation unmasked by symmetries

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