Rapidly rotating neutron star progenitors

Rotating proto-neutron stars can be important sources of gravitational waves to be searched for by present-day and future interferometric detectors. It was demonstrated by Imshennik that in extreme cases the rapid rotation of a collapsing stellar core may lead to fission and formation of a binary proto-neutron star which subsequently merges due to gravitational wave emission. In the present paper, we show that such dynamically unstable collapsing stellar cores may be the product of a former merger process of two stellar cores in a common envelope. We applied population synthesis calculations to assess the expected fraction of such rapidly rotating stellar cores which may lead to fission and formation of a pair of proto-neutron stars. We have used the BSE population synthesis code supplemented with a new treatment of stellar core rotation during the evolution via effective core-envelope coupling, characterized by the coupling time, $\tau_c$. The validity of this approach is checked by direct MESA calculations of the evolution of a rotating 15 $M_\odot$ star. From comparison of the calculated spin distribution of young neutron stars with the observed one, reported by Popov and Turolla, we infer the value $\tau_c \simeq 5 \times 10^5$ years. We show that merging of stellar cores in common envelopes can lead to collapses with dynamically unstable proto-neutron stars, with their formation rate being $\sim 0.1-1\%$ of the total core collapses, depending on the common envelope efficiency.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA

The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array:IV. Implications for massive black holes, dark matter, and the early Universe

The European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) and Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA) collaborations have measured a low-frequency common signal in the combination of their second and first data releases, respectively, with the correlation properties of a gravitational wave background (GWB). Such a signal may have its origin in a number of physical processes including a cosmic population of inspiralling supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs); inflation, phase transitions, cosmic strings, and tensor mode generation by the non-linear evolution of scalar perturbations in the early Universe; and oscillations of the Galactic potential in the presence of ultra-light dark matter (ULDM). At the current stage of emerging evidence, it is impossible to discriminate among the different origins. Therefore, for this paper, we consider each process separately, and investigated the implications of the signal under the hypothesis that it is generated by that specific process. We find that the signal is consistent with a cosmic population of inspiralling SMBHBs, and its relatively high amplitude can be used to place constraints on binary merger timescales and the SMBH-host galaxy scaling relations. If this origin is confirmed, this would be the first direct evidence that SMBHBs merge in nature, adding an important observational piece to the puzzle of structure formation and galaxy evolution. As for early Universe processes, the measurement would place tight constraints on the cosmic string tension and on the level of turbulence developed by first-order phase transitions. Other processes would require non-standard scenarios, such as a blue-tilted inflationary spectrum or an excess in the primordial spectrum of scalar perturbations at large wavenumbers. Finally, a ULDM origin of the detected signal is disfavoured, which leads to direct constraints on the abundance of ULDM in our Galaxy

The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array:IV. Implications for massive black holes, dark matter, and the early Universe

The European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) and Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA) collaborations have measured a low-frequency common signal in the combination of their second and first data releases, respectively, with the correlation properties of a gravitational wave background (GWB). Such a signal may have its origin in a number of physical processes including a cosmic population of inspiralling supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs); inflation, phase transitions, cosmic strings, and tensor mode generation by the non-linear evolution of scalar perturbations in the early Universe; and oscillations of the Galactic potential in the presence of ultra-light dark matter (ULDM). At the current stage of emerging evidence, it is impossible to discriminate among the different origins. Therefore, for this paper, we consider each process separately, and investigated the implications of the signal under the hypothesis that it is generated by that specific process. We find that the signal is consistent with a cosmic population of inspiralling SMBHBs, and its relatively high amplitude can be used to place constraints on binary merger timescales and the SMBH-host galaxy scaling relations. If this origin is confirmed, this would be the first direct evidence that SMBHBs merge in nature, adding an important observational piece to the puzzle of structure formation and galaxy evolution. As for early Universe processes, the measurement would place tight constraints on the cosmic string tension and on the level of turbulence developed by first-order phase transitions. Other processes would require non-standard scenarios, such as a blue-tilted inflationary spectrum or an excess in the primordial spectrum of scalar perturbations at large wavenumbers. Finally, a ULDM origin of the detected signal is disfavoured, which leads to direct constraints on the abundance of ULDM in our Galaxy

Quality over Quantity: Optimizing pulsar timing array analysis for stochastic and continuous gravitational wave signals

The search for gravitational waves using Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) is acomputationally expensive complex analysis that involves source-specific noisestudies. As more pulsars are added to the arrays, this stage of PTA analysiswill become increasingly challenging. Therefore, optimizing the number ofincluded pulsars is crucial to reduce the computational burden of dataanalysis. Here, we present a suite of methods to rank pulsars for use withinthe scope of PTA analysis. First, we use the maximization of thesignal-to-noise ratio as a proxy to select pulsars. With this method, we targetthe detection of stochastic and continuous gravitational wave signals. Next, wepresent a ranking that minimizes the coupling between spatial correlationsignatures, namely monopolar, dipolar, and Hellings & Downs correlations.Finally, we also explore how to combine these two methods. We test theseapproaches against mock data using frequentist and Bayesian hypothesis testing.For equal-noise pulsars, we find that an optimal selection leads to an increasein the log-Bayes factor two times steeper than a random selection for thehypothesis test of a gravitational wave background versus a common uncorrelatedred noise process. For the same test but for a realistic EPTA dataset, a subsetof 25 pulsars selected out of 40 can provide a log-likelihood ratio that is$89\%$ of the total, implying that an optimally selected subset of pulsars canyield results comparable to those obtained from the whole array. We expectthese selection methods to play a crucial role in future PTA data combinations.<br

Practical approaches to analyzing PTA data: Cosmic strings with six pulsars

We search for a stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) generated by a network of cosmic strings using six millisecond pulsars from Data Release 2 (DR2) of the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA). We perform a Bayesian analysis considering two models for the network of cosmic string loops, and compare it to a simple power-law model which is expected from the population of supermassive black hole binaries. Our main strong assumption is that the previously reported common red noise process is a SGWB. We find that the one-parameter cosmic string model is slightly favored over a power-law model thanks to its simplicity. If we assume a two-component stochastic signal in the data (supermassive black hole binary population and the signal from cosmic strings), we get a $95\%$ upper limit on the string tension of $\log_{10}(G\mu) < -9.9$ ($-10.5$) for the two cosmic string models we consider. In extended two-parameter string models, we were unable to constrain the number of kinks. We test two approximate and fast Bayesian data analysis methods against the most rigorous analysis and find consistent results. These two fast and efficient methods are applicable to all SGWBs, independent of their source, and will be crucial for analysis of extended data sets.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure

The second data release from the European Pulsar Timing Array I. The dataset and timing analysis

Pulsar timing arrays offer a probe of the low-frequency gravitational wave spectrum (1 - 100 nanohertz), which is intimately connected to a number of markers that can uniquely trace the formation and evolution of the Universe. We present the dataset and the results of the timing analysis from the second data release of the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA). The dataset contains high-precision pulsar timing data from 25 millisecond pulsars collected with the five largest radio telescopes in Europe, as well as the Large European Array for Pulsars. The dataset forms the foundation for the search for gravitational waves by the EPTA, presented in associated papers. We describe the dataset and present the results of the frequentist and Bayesian pulsar timing analysis for individual millisecond pulsars that have been observed over the last ~25 years. We discuss the improvements to the individual pulsar parameter estimates, as well as new measurements of the physical properties of these pulsars and their companions. This data release extends the dataset from EPTA Data Release 1 up to the beginning of 2021, with individual pulsar datasets with timespans ranging from 14 to 25 years. These lead to improved constraints on annual parallaxes, secular variation of the orbital period, and Shapiro delay for a number of sources. Based on these results, we derived astrophysical parameters that include distances, transverse velocities, binary pulsar masses, and annual orbital parallaxes.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figures, 13 tables, Astronomy & Astrophysics in pres