Pulsar timing arrays and the cosmological constant

In this talk I review how a non-zero cosmological constant Λ effects the propagation of gravitational waves and their detection in pulsar timing arrays (PTA). If Λ ≠ 0 it turns out that waves are anharmonic in cosmological Friedmann-Robertson- Walker coordinates and although the amount of anharmonic...

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Detalhes bibliográficos
Autor: Espriu, D. (Domènec)
Formato: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2014
País:España
Recursos:Varias* (Consorci de Biblioteques Universitáries de Catalunya, Centre de Serveis Científics i Acadèmics de Catalunya)
Repositorio:Recercat. Dipósit de la Recerca de Catalunya
OAI Identifier:oai:recercat.cat:2445/119156
Acesso em linha:https://hdl.handle.net/2445/119156
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palavra-chave:Cosmologia
Ones gravitacionals
Cosmology
Gravitational waves
Descrição
Resumo:In this talk I review how a non-zero cosmological constant Λ effects the propagation of gravitational waves and their detection in pulsar timing arrays (PTA). If Λ ≠ 0 it turns out that waves are anharmonic in cosmological Friedmann-Robertson- Walker coordinates and although the amount of anharmonicity is very small it leads to potentially measurable effects. The timing residuals induced by gravitational waves in PTA would show a peculiar angular dependence with a marked enhancement around a particular value of the angle subtended by the source and the pulsars. This angle depends mainly on the actual value of the cosmological constant and the distance to the source. Preliminary estimates indicate that the enhancement can be rather notorious for supermassive black hole mergers and in fact it could facilitate the first direct detection of gravitational waves while at the same time representing a 'local' measurement of Λ.