The NANOGrav 12.5 yr Data Set: A Computationally Efficient Eccentric Binary Search Pipeline and Constraints on an Eccentric Supermassive Binary Candidate in 3C 66B

Date

2024-03-01

Author

Agazie, Gabriella
Arzoumanian, Zaven
Baker, Paul T.
Becsy, Bence
Blecha, Laura
Blumer, Harsha
Brazier, Adam
Brook, Paul R.
Burke-Spolaor, Sarah
Casey-Clyde, J. Andrew
Charisi, Maria
Chatterjee, Shami
Cheeseboro, Belinda D.
Cohen, Tyler
Cordes, James M.
Cornish, Neil J.
Crawford, Fronefield
Cromartie, H. Thankful
Decesar, Megan E.
Demorest, Paul B.
Dey, Lankeswar
Dolch, Timothy
Ellis, Justin A.
Ferdman, Robert D.
Ferrara, Elizabeth C.
Fiore, William
Fonseca, Emmanuel
Freedman, Gabriel E.
Garver-Daniels, Nate
Gentile, Peter A.
Glaser, Joseph
Good, Deborah C.
Gopakumar, Achamveedu
Gueltekin, Kayhan
Hazboun, Jeffrey S.
Jennings, Ross J.
Johnson, Aaron D.
Jones, Megan L.
Kaiser, Andrew R.
Kaplan, David L.
Kelley, Luke Zoltan
Key, Joey S.
Laal, Nima
Lam, Michael T.
Lamb, William G.
W. Lazio, T. Joseph
Lewandowska, Natalia
Liu, Tingting
Lorimer, Duncan R.
Luo, Jing
Lynch, Ryan S.
Ma, Chung-Pei
Madison, Dustin R.
Mcewen, Alexander
Mckee, James W.
Mclaughlin, Maura A.
Meyers, Patrick M.
Mingarelli, Chiara M. F.
Mitridate, Andrea
Ng, Cherry
Nice, David J.
Ocker, Stella Koch
Olum, Ken D.
Pennucci, Timothy T.
Pol, Nihan S.
Radovan, Henri A.
Ransom, Scott M.
Ray, Paul S.
Romano, Joseph D.
Sardesai, Shashwat C.
Schmitz, Kai
Siemens, Xavier
Simon, Joseph
Siwek, Magdalena S.
Sosa Fiscella, Sophia V.
Spiewak, Renee
Stairs, Ingrid H.
Stinebring, Daniel R.
Stovall, Kevin
Susobhanan, Abhimanyu
Swiggum, Joseph K.
Taylor, Stephen R.
Turner, Jacob E.
Ünal, Caner
Vallisneri, Michele
Vigeland, Sarah J.
Witt, Caitlin A.
Young, Olivia

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The radio galaxy 3C 66B has been hypothesized to host a supermassive black hole binary (SMBHB) at its center based on electromagnetic observations. Its apparent 1.05 yr period and low redshift (similar to 0.02) make it an interesting testbed to search for low-frequency gravitational waves (GWs) using pulsar timing array ( PTA) experiments. This source has been subjected to multiple searches for continuous GWs from a circular SMBHB, resulting in progressively more stringent constraints on its GW amplitude and chirp mass. In this paper, we develop a pipeline for performing Bayesian targeted searches for eccentric SMBHBs in PTA data sets, and test its efficacy by applying it to simulated data sets with varying injected signal strengths. We also search for a realistic eccentric SMBHB source in 3C 66B using the NANOGrav 12.5 yr data set employing PTA signal models containing Earth term-only as well as Earth+pulsar term contributions using this pipeline. Due to limitations in our PTA signal model, we get meaningful results only when the initial eccentricity e(0) 0.1. We find no evidence for an eccentric SMBHB signal in our data, and therefore place 95% upper limits on the PTA signal amplitude of 88.1 +/- 3.7 ns for the Earth term-only and 81.74 +/- 0.86 ns for the Earth+pulsar term searches for e(0) 0.1. Similar 95% upper limits on the chirp mass are (1.98 +/- 0.05) x 10(9) and (1.81 +/- 0.01) x 10(9) M-circle dot. These upper limits, while less stringent than those calculated from a circular binary search in the NANOGrav 12.5 yr data set, are consistent with the SMBHB model of 3C 66B developed from electromagnetic observations.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/116436

Collections

Department of Physics, Article