Orateur
Description
Pulsar timing array (PTA) experiments are designed to detect gravitational waves (GWs) at nano-hertz frequencies. Supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) represent the most plausible astrophysical sources in this band. The superposition of GWs emitted by the entire SMBHB population produces a stochastic GW background (GWB). Particularly massive and nearby SMBHBs can produce signals strong enough to stand out above this background as individually resolvable sources. PTAs are sensitive to the early inspiral of these systems at large orbital separations, where circularisation due to GW emission may not yet be efficient, leading binaries to retain significant eccentricity when entering the PTA sensitivity band.
In this talk, I will present results of parameter estimation performed using a gravitational waveform model based on the Effective-One-Body (EOB) approach for individually resolvable binaries. I will focus on binaries relevant for an EPTA-like mock dataset, spanning the parameter space in eccentricity, chirp mass, and orbital frequency for various signal-to-noise ratios (SNRs). The main focus will be on the interplay between individual eccentric binaries and a common red noise process (representing the GWB), examining how eccentricity affects our ability to characterise both signals simultaneously.