Bayesian solar wind modeling with pulsar timing arrays

Hazboun, Jeffrey S., Simon, Joseph, Madison, Dustin R., Arzoumanian, Zaven, Cromartie, H. Thankful, Crowter, Kathryn, DeCesar, Megan E., Demorest, Paul B., Dolch, Timothy, Ellis, Justin A., Ferdman, Robert D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2223-1235, Ferrara, Elizabeth C., Fonseca, Emmanuel, Gentile, Peter A., Jones, Glenn, Lam, Michael T., Levin, Lina, Lorimer, Duncan R., Lynch, Ryan S., McLaughlin, Maura A., Ng, Cherry, Nice, David J., Pennucci, Timothy T., Ransom, Scott M., Ray, Paul S., Spiewak, Renée, Stairs, Ingrid H., Stovall, Kevin, Swiggum, Joseph K. and Zhu, Weiwei and NANOGrav Collaboration (2022) Bayesian solar wind modeling with pulsar timing arrays. The Astrophysical Journal, 929 (1). ISSN 1538-4357

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Abstract

Using Bayesian analyses we study the solar electron density with the NANOGrav 11 yr pulsar timing array (PTA) data set. Our model of the solar wind is incorporated into a global fit starting from pulse times of arrival. We introduce new tools developed for this global fit, including analytic expressions for solar electron column densities and open source models for the solar wind that port into existing PTA software. We perform an ab initio recovery of various solar wind model parameters. We then demonstrate the richness of information about the solar electron density, nE, that can be gleaned from PTA data, including higher order corrections to the simple 1/r2 model associated with a free-streaming wind (which are informative probes of coronal acceleration physics), quarterly binned measurements of nE and a continuous time-varying model for nE spanning approximately one solar cycle period. Finally, we discuss the importance of our model for chromatic noise mitigation in gravitational-wave analyses of pulsar timing data and the potential of developing synergies between sophisticated PTA solar electron density models and those developed by the solar physics community.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: solar wind,pulsar timing method,radio pulsars,millisecond pulsars,gravitational waves,1534,1305,1353,1062,678,astrophysics - solar and stellar astrophysics,astrophysics - high energy astrophysical phenomena,physics - space physics,astronomy and astrophysics,space and planetary science ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/3100/3103
Faculty \ School: Faculty of Science > School of Physics
Related URLs:
Depositing User: LivePure Connector
Date Deposited: 12 Jul 2023 15:31
Last Modified: 19 Jul 2023 08:30
URI: https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/92593
DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac5829

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