Gravitational waves from binary supermassive black holes missing in pulsar observations
Gravitational waves are expected to be radiated by supermassive black hole binaries formed during galaxy mergers. A stochastic superposition of gravitational waves from all such binary systems would modulate the arrival times of pulses from radio pulsars. Using observations of millisecond pulsars ob...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Journal Article |
| Published: |
American Association for the Advancement of Science
2015
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/4891 |
| _version_ | 1848744643086254080 |
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| author | Shannon, Ryan Ravi, V. Lentati, L. Lasky, P. Hobbs, G. Kerr, M. Manchester, R. Coles, W. Levin, Y. Bailes, M. Bhat, N. Burke-Spolaor, S. Dai, S. Keith, M. Oslowski, S. Reardon, D. Van Strateni, W. Toomey, L. Wang, J. Wen, L. Wyithe, J. Zhu, X. |
| author_facet | Shannon, Ryan Ravi, V. Lentati, L. Lasky, P. Hobbs, G. Kerr, M. Manchester, R. Coles, W. Levin, Y. Bailes, M. Bhat, N. Burke-Spolaor, S. Dai, S. Keith, M. Oslowski, S. Reardon, D. Van Strateni, W. Toomey, L. Wang, J. Wen, L. Wyithe, J. Zhu, X. |
| author_sort | Shannon, Ryan |
| building | Curtin Institutional Repository |
| collection | Online Access |
| description | Gravitational waves are expected to be radiated by supermassive black hole binaries formed during galaxy mergers. A stochastic superposition of gravitational waves from all such binary systems would modulate the arrival times of pulses from radio pulsars. Using observations of millisecond pulsars obtained with the Parkes radio telescope, we constrained the characteristic amplitude of this background, Acyr, to be <1.0 × 10-15 with 95% confidence.This limit excludes predicted ranges for Acyr from current models with 91 to 99.7% probability. We conclude that binary evolution is either stalled or dramatically accelerated by galactic-center environments and that higher-cadence and shorterwavelength observations would be more sensitive to gravitational waves. |
| first_indexed | 2025-11-14T06:04:43Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | curtin-20.500.11937-4891 |
| institution | Curtin University Malaysia |
| institution_category | Local University |
| last_indexed | 2025-11-14T06:04:43Z |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publisher | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
| recordtype | eprints |
| repository_type | Digital Repository |
| spelling | curtin-20.500.11937-48912018-03-29T09:05:23Z Gravitational waves from binary supermassive black holes missing in pulsar observations Shannon, Ryan Ravi, V. Lentati, L. Lasky, P. Hobbs, G. Kerr, M. Manchester, R. Coles, W. Levin, Y. Bailes, M. Bhat, N. Burke-Spolaor, S. Dai, S. Keith, M. Oslowski, S. Reardon, D. Van Strateni, W. Toomey, L. Wang, J. Wen, L. Wyithe, J. Zhu, X. Gravitational waves are expected to be radiated by supermassive black hole binaries formed during galaxy mergers. A stochastic superposition of gravitational waves from all such binary systems would modulate the arrival times of pulses from radio pulsars. Using observations of millisecond pulsars obtained with the Parkes radio telescope, we constrained the characteristic amplitude of this background, Acyr, to be <1.0 × 10-15 with 95% confidence.This limit excludes predicted ranges for Acyr from current models with 91 to 99.7% probability. We conclude that binary evolution is either stalled or dramatically accelerated by galactic-center environments and that higher-cadence and shorterwavelength observations would be more sensitive to gravitational waves. 2015 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/4891 10.1126/science.aab1910 American Association for the Advancement of Science restricted |
| spellingShingle | Shannon, Ryan Ravi, V. Lentati, L. Lasky, P. Hobbs, G. Kerr, M. Manchester, R. Coles, W. Levin, Y. Bailes, M. Bhat, N. Burke-Spolaor, S. Dai, S. Keith, M. Oslowski, S. Reardon, D. Van Strateni, W. Toomey, L. Wang, J. Wen, L. Wyithe, J. Zhu, X. Gravitational waves from binary supermassive black holes missing in pulsar observations |
| title | Gravitational waves from binary supermassive black holes missing in pulsar observations |
| title_full | Gravitational waves from binary supermassive black holes missing in pulsar observations |
| title_fullStr | Gravitational waves from binary supermassive black holes missing in pulsar observations |
| title_full_unstemmed | Gravitational waves from binary supermassive black holes missing in pulsar observations |
| title_short | Gravitational waves from binary supermassive black holes missing in pulsar observations |
| title_sort | gravitational waves from binary supermassive black holes missing in pulsar observations |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/4891 |