Development of a pulsar-based time-scale
- Creators
- Hobbs, G.
- Coles, W.
- Manchester, R. N.
- Keith, M. J.
- Shannon, R. M.
- Chen, D.
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Bailes, M.
- Bhat, N. D. R.
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Burke-Spolaor, S.
- Champion, D.
- Chaudhary, A.
- Hotan, A.
- Khoo, J.
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Kocz, J.
- Levin, Y.
- Oslowski, S.
- Preisig, B.
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Ravi, V.
- Reynolds, J. E.
- Sarkissian, J.
- van Straten, W.
- Verbiest, J. P. W.
- Yardley, D.
- You, X. P.
Abstract
Using observations of pulsars from the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) project we develop the first pulsar-based time-scale that has a precision comparable to the uncertainties in International Atomic Time-scales (TAI). Our ensemble of pulsars provides an Ensemble Pulsar Scale (EPS) analogous to the free atomic time-scale Échelle Atomique Libre. The EPS can be used to detect fluctuations in atomic time-scales and therefore can lead to a new realization of Terrestrial Time, TT(PPTA11). We successfully follow features known to affect the frequency of the TAI, and we find marginally significant differences between TT(PPTA11) and TT(BIPM11). We discuss the various phenomena that lead to a correlated signal in the pulsar timing residuals and therefore limit the stability of the pulsar time-scale.
Additional Information
© 2012 The Authors. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2012 RAS. Accepted 2012 August 15. Received 2012 August 14; in original form 2012 June 8. Published: 21 December 2012. The Parkes radio telescope is part of the Australia Telescope which is funded by the Commonwealth of Australia for operation as a National Facility managed by CSIRO. The PPTA project was initiated with support from RNM's Australian Research Council (ARC) Federation Fellowship (FF0348478). GH acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) #10803006 and #11010250 and the Australian Research Council #DP0878388. JPWV was supported by the European Union under Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship 236394. We thank the referee, Gérard Petit, for extremely useful comments on the paper.Attached Files
Published - 427-4-2780.pdf
Accepted Version - 1208.3560.pdf
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Additional details
- Alternative title
- Development of a pulsar-based timescale
- Eprint ID
- 36915
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20130214-090244663
- FF0348478
- Australian Research Council
- 10803006
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- 11010250
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- DP0878388
- Australian Research Council
- 236394
- Marie Curie Fellowship
- Created
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2013-03-05Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- TAPIR