Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T20:22:52.817Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Solar System Ephemerides, Pulsar Timing, Gravitational Waves, & Navigation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 June 2018

T. Joseph W. Lazio
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Dr, Pasadena, CA 91109USA
S. Bhaskaran
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Dr, Pasadena, CA 91109USA
C. Cutler
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Dr, Pasadena, CA 91109USA
W. M. Folkner
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Dr, Pasadena, CA 91109USA
R. S. Park
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Dr, Pasadena, CA 91109USA
J. A. Ellis
Affiliation:
Department of Physics & Astronomy, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV 26506USA
T. Ely
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Dr, Pasadena, CA 91109USA
S. R. Taylor
Affiliation:
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125USA
M. Vallisneri
Affiliation:
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Dr, Pasadena, CA 91109USA
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In-spiraling supermassive black holes should emit gravitational waves, which would produce characteristic distortions in the time of arrival residuals from millisecond pulsars. Multiple national and regional consortia have constructed pulsar timing arrays by precise timing of different sets of millisecond pulsars. An essential aspect of precision timing is the transfer of the times of arrival to a (quasi-)inertial frame, conventionally the solar system barycenter. The barycenter is determined from the knowledge of the planetary masses and orbits, which has been refined over the past 50 years by multiple spacecraft. Within the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), uncertainties on the solar system barycenter are emerging as an important element of the NANOGrav noise budget. We describe what is known about the solar system barycenter, touch upon how uncertainties in it affect gravitational wave studies with pulsar timing arrays, and consider future trends in spacecraft navigation.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2018 

References

Begelman, M. C., Blandford, R. D., & Rees, M. J., 1980, Nature, 287, 307CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bolton, S. J., et al. 2017, Science, 356, 821Google Scholar
Chester, T. J. & Butman, S. A. 1981, “Navigation Using X-ray Pulsars,” Telecommunications & Data Acquisition Progress Report 42-63, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CAGoogle Scholar
Deng, X. P., Hobbs, G., You, X. P., et al. 2013, Adv. Space Res., 52, 1602Google Scholar
Edgington, S. G., & Spilker, L. J., 2016, Nature Geosci., 9, 472Google Scholar
Ely, T., & Seubert, J., 2015, Adv. Astronaut. Sci. Spaceflight Mechanics, 155, 2799Google Scholar
Jaffe, A. H., & Backer, D. C., 2003, ApJ, 583, 616Google Scholar
Khan, F. M., Fiacconi, D., Mayer, L., Berczik, P., & Just, A., 2016, ApJ, 828, 73Google Scholar
Lorimer, D. R. & Kramer, M. 2004, Handbook of Pulsar Astronomy, Cambridge Observing Handbooks for Research Astronomers, Vol. 4 (Cambridge Univ. Press: Cambridge, UK)Google Scholar
Mingarelli, C. M. F., Lazio, T. J. W., et al. 2017, Nature Astron.; doi: 10.1038/s41550-017-0299-6Google Scholar
Rayman, M. D., Varghese, P., Lehman, D. H., & Livesay, L. L., 2000, Acta Astronautica, 47, 475Google Scholar
Rong, J., Luping, X., Zhang, H., & Cong, L., 2016, Adv. Space Res., 58, 1864Google Scholar
Sesana, A., 2013, Classical Quant. Grav., 30, 244009Google Scholar
Sheikh, S. I., Pines, D. J., Ray, P. S., et al. 2006, J. Guid. Control Dynam., 29, 49Google Scholar
Shemar, S., Fraser, G., Heil, L., et al. 2016, Exp. Astron., 42, 101Google Scholar
Zheng, S., Ge, M., Han, D., et al. 2017, Sci. Sin. Physica, Mechanica, & Astronomica, 47, 099505Google Scholar