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SUMMARY:Searching for a Gravitational Wave Background using Pulsar Timing 
 Arrays - Lindley Lentati (Cavendish Astrophysics)
DTSTART:20130219T170000Z
DTEND:20130219T173000Z
UID:TALK42606@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:David Titterington
DESCRIPTION:It is fair to say that the first direct detection of gravitati
 onal waves is one of the most sought after goals in science today.  Here w
 e present a new method for analysing data from a pulsar timing array - a c
 ollection of Galactic millisecond pulsars - from which the signal induced 
 by a stochastic gravitational wave background (GWB) could be extracted. Ex
 isting Bayesian methods for such analysis are for the most part extremely 
 computationally expensive\, and assume power-law models for the shape of t
 he GWB spectrum.  Our method eliminates the most costly aspects of computa
 tion associated with this type of analysis\, resulting in a decrease in ru
 n-time from days to minutes\, and critically at no stage requires the need
  to specify any prior form for the shape of the GWB power spectrum.  Our m
 ethod of sampling also allows us to include parameterisation of the spatia
 l correlations between pulsars directly.  The shape of this correlation is
  the 'smoking gun' of a signal from a GWB\, and so the ability to extract 
 it from the data without assuming its presence is crucial for the credibil
 ity of any future detection\, and\, in short makes this the only Bayesian\
 , model-independent method for performing this sort of analysis currently 
 available.\n
LOCATION:Ryle Seminar Room\, Cavendish Laboratory
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