Seminar: Gravitational-wave detection by Pulsar Timing Arrays

Dr Yuri Levin 

Monash University

21-st Century astrophysics will almost certainly be enriched by a new window on the Universe, to be opened through the detection of gravitational waves from galactic and extragalactic sources. Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) are programs developed in order to measure extra-galactic gravitational waves by the super-precise timing of millisecond pulsars in our galaxy. In this talk, I will discuss the astrophysics of the PTAs and propose a strategy for the PTA data analysis. I will show how this strategy has been applied to the European PTA data, to yield the most stringent bound to date, on the strength of gravitational waves emitted by binaries of supermassive black holes in galactic centers.