Hyper-efficient model-independent Bayesian method for the analysis of pulsar timing data

Understand

A new model independent method is presented for the analysis of pulsar timing data and the estimation of the spectral properties of an isotropic gravitational wave background (GWB).

• We show that by rephrasing the likelihood we are able to eliminate the most costly aspects of computation normally associated with this type of data analysis.
• When applied to the International Pulsar Timing Array Mock Data Challenge data sets this results in speedups of approximately 2 to 3 orders of magnitude compared to established methods.
• We present three applications of the new likelihood.