Prospects for detecting dark matter halo substructure with pulsar timing
Abstract
One of the open questions of modern cosmology is the nature and properties of the dark matter halo and its substructures. In this work we study the gravitational effect of dark matter substructures on pulsar timing observations. Since millisecond pulsars are stable and accurate emitters, they have been proposed as plausible astrophysical tools to probe the gravitational effects of dark matter structures. We study this effect on pulsar timing through Shapiro time delay (or integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect) and Doppler effects statistically, showing that the latter dominates the signal. For this task, we relate the power spectrum of pulsar frequency change to the matter power spectrum on small scales, which we compute using the stable clustering hypothesis, as well as other models of nonlinear structure formation. We compare this power spectrum with the reach of current and future observations of pulsar timing designed for gravitational wave detection. Our results show that while current observations are unable to detect these signals, the sensitivity of the upcoming square kilometer array is only a factor of few weaker than our optimistic predictions.
Additional Information
© 2011 American Physical Society. (Received 27 January 2011; published 10 August 2011) We would like to thank Latham Boyle, Adrienne Erickcek, Sohrab Rahvar, and Ethan Siegal for discussion and valuable comments. S. B. thanks the Perimeter Institute for their kind hospitality during a visit where part of this work began. N. A. is supported by Perimeter Institute (PI) for Theoretical Physics and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC). Research at PI is supported by the Government of Canada through Industry Canada and by the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Research & Innovation.Attached Files
Published - PhysRevD.84.043511.pdf
Accepted Version - 1101.5487.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 96380
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20190613-110921960
- Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)
- Industry Canada
- Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation
- Created
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2019-06-17Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field