Testing the binary hypothesis: pulsar timing constraints on supermassive black hole binary candidates

Understand

The advent of time domain astronomy is revolutionizing our understanding of the Universe.

• Programs such as the Catalina Real-time Transient Survey (CRTS) or the Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) surveyed millions of objects for several years, allowing variability studies on large statistical samples.
• The inspection of $\approx$250k quasars in CRTS resulted in a catalogue of 111 potentially periodic sources, put forward as supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) candidates.
• A similar investigation on PTF data yielded 33 candidates from a sample of $\approx$35k quasars.