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Published February 2020 | Published
Journal Article Open

A pulsar-based timescale from the International Pulsar Timing Array

Abstract

We have constructed a new time-scale, TT(IPTA16), based on observations of radio pulsars presented in the first data release from the International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA). We used two analysis techniques with independent estimates of the noise models for the pulsar observations and different algorithms for obtaining the pulsar time-scale. The two analyses agree within the estimated uncertainties and both agree with TT(BIPM17), a post-corrected time-scale produced by the Bureau International des Poids et Mesures (BIPM). We show that both methods could detect significant errors in TT(BIPM17) if they were present. We estimate the stability of the atomic clocks from which TT(BIPM17) is derived using observations of four rubidium fountain clocks at the US Naval Observatory. Comparing the power spectrum of TT(IPTA16) with that of these fountain clocks suggests that pulsar-based time-scales are unlikely to contribute to the stability of the best time-scales over the next decade, but they will remain a valuable independent check on atomic time-scales. We also find that the stability of the pulsar-based time-scale is likely to be limited by our knowledge of solar-system dynamics, and that errors in TT(BIPM17) will not be a limiting factor for the primary goal of the IPTA, which is to search for the signatures of nano-Hertz gravitational waves.

Additional Information

© 2019 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. This article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model (https://academic.oup.com/journals/pages/open_access/funder_policies/chorus/standard_publication_model). Accepted 2019 October 28. Received 2019 October 7; in original form 2019 January 15. Published: 04 November 2019. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory and Green Bank Observatories are facilities of the NSF operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. The Arecibo Observatory is operated by SRI International under a cooperative agreement with the NSF (AST-1100968), and in alliance with Ana G. Méndez-Universidad Metropolitana, and the Universities Space Research Association. The Parkes telescope is part of the Australia Telescope which is funded by the Commonwealth Government for operation as a National Facility managed by CSIRO. The Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope is operated by the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) with support from The Netherlands Foundation for Scientific Research NWO. The 100-m Effelsberg Radio Telescope is operated by the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie at Effelsberg. Some of the work reported in this paper was supported by the ERC Advanced Grant 'LEAP', Grant Agreement Number 227947 (PI Kramer). Pulsar research at the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics is supported by a consolidated grant from STFC. The Nancay radio telescope is operated by the Paris Observatory, associated with the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and acknowledges financial support from the 'Programme National de Cosmologie et Galaxies (PNCG)' and 'Gravitation, Références, Astronomie, Métrologie (GRAM)' programmes of CNRS/INSU, France. LG is supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China No.11873076. The Flatiron Institute is supported by the Simons Foundation. The NANOGrav work in this paper was supported by National Science Foundation (NSF) PIRE program award number 0968296 and NSF Physics Frontiers Center award number 1430824. KJL is supported by XDB23010200, National Basic Research Program of China, 973 Program, 2015CB857101, and NSFC U15311243, 11690024, and the MPG funding for the Max-Planck Partner Group. LG was supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) (nos. U1431117) and #11010250. EG acknowledges the support from IMPRS Bonn/Cologne and the Bonn–Cologne Graduate School (BCGS). YW acknowledges the support from NSFC under grants 11503007, 91636111, and 11690021. SBS acknowledges the support of NSF EPSCoR award number 1458952. KL and GD acknowledge the financial support by the European Research Council for the ERC Synergy Grant BlackHoleCam under contract no. 610058. Part of this research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Work at NRL is supported by NASA. We thank Patrizia Tavella from the BIPM for helping us understand the nomenclature used when describing time standards.

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Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
Modified:
October 19, 2023