The NANOGrav 15-year Data Set: Search for Anisotropy in the Gravitational-Wave Background

Gabriella Agazie,Akash Anumarlapudi,Anne M. Archibald,Zaven Arzoumanian,Paul T. Baker,Bence Bécsy,Laura Blecha,Adam Brazier,Paul R. Brook,Sarah Burke-Spolaor,J. Andrew Casey-Clyde,Maria Charisi,Shami Chatterjee,Tyler Cohen,James M. Cordes,Neil J. Cornish,Fronefield Crawford,H. Thankful Cromartie,Kathryn Crowter,Megan E. DeCesar,Paul B. Demorest,Timothy Dolch,Brendan Drachler,Elizabeth C. Ferrara,William Fiore,Emmanuel Fonseca, Gabriel E. Freedman,Emiko Gardiner,Nate Garver-Daniels,Peter A. Gentile,Joseph Glaser,Deborah C. Good,Kayhan Gültekin,Jeffrey S. Hazboun,Ross J. Jennings,Aaron D. Johnson,Megan L. Jones,Andrew R. Kaiser,David L. Kaplan,Luke Zoltan Kelley,Matthew Kerr,Joey S. Key,Nima Laal,Michael T. Lam,William G. Lamb,T. Joseph W. Lazio,Natalia Lewandowska,Tingting Liu,Duncan R. Lorimer,Jing Luo,Ryan S. Lynch,Chung-Pei Ma,Dustin R. Madison,Alexander McEwen,James W. McKee,Maura A. McLaughlin, Natasha McMann,Bradley W. Meyers,Chiara M. F. Mingarelli,Andrea Mitridate,Cherry Ng,David J. Nice,Stella Koch Ocker,Ken D. Olum,Timothy T. Pennucci,Benetge B. P. Perera,Nihan S. Pol, Henri A. Radovan,Scott M. Ransom,Paul S. Ray,Joseph D. Romano,Shashwat C. Sardesai,Ann Schmiedekamp, Carl Schmiedekamp,Kai Schmitz,Levi Schult,Brent J. Shapiro-Albert,Xavier Siemens,Joseph Simon,Magdalena S. Siwek,Ingrid H. Stairs,Daniel R. Stinebring,Kevin Stovall,Abhimanyu Susobhanan,Joseph K. Swiggum, Stephen R. Taylor,Jacob E. Turner,Caner Unal,Michele Vallisneri,Sarah J. Vigeland,Haley M. Wahl,Caitlin A. Witt,Olivia Young

The Astrophysical Journal Letters(2023)

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摘要
The North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) has reported evidence for the presence of an isotropic nanohertz gravitational wave background (GWB) in its 15 yr dataset. However, if the GWB is produced by a population of inspiraling supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) systems, then the background is predicted to be anisotropic, depending on the distribution of these systems in the local Universe and the statistical properties of the SMBHB population. In this work, we search for anisotropy in the GWB using multiple methods and bases to describe the distribution of the GWB power on the sky. We do not find significant evidence of anisotropy, and place a Bayesian $95\%$ upper limit on the level of broadband anisotropy such that $(C_{l>0} / C_{l=0}) < 20\%$. We also derive conservative estimates on the anisotropy expected from a random distribution of SMBHB systems using astrophysical simulations conditioned on the isotropic GWB inferred in the 15-yr dataset, and show that this dataset has sufficient sensitivity to probe a large fraction of the predicted level of anisotropy. We end by highlighting the opportunities and challenges in searching for anisotropy in pulsar timing array data.
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关键词
Gravitational waves,Gravitational wave astronomy,Supermassive black holes,Pulsars
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