Detection of Gravitational Waves using Pulsar Timing

Understand

Pulsars are very stable clocks in space which have many applications to problems in physics and astrophysics.

• Observations of double-neutron-star binary systems have given the first observational evidence for the existence of gravitational waves (GWs) and shown that Einstein's general theory of relativity is an accurate description of gravitational interactions in the regime of strong gravity.
• Observations of a large sample of pulsars spread across the celestial sphere forming a "Pulsar Timing Array" (PTA), can in principle enable a positive detection of the GW background in the Galaxy.
• The Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) is making precise timing measurements of 20 millisecond pulsars at three radio frequencies and is approaching the level of timing precision and data spans which are needed for GW detection.