EPTA meeting, Paris - Jun 2026

Session

Gravitational waves and interpretation session

3 juin 2026, 11:00

APC

14. Continuous-wave candidate validation across PTAs

Bence Becsy (University of Birmingham)

03/06/2026 11:00

Building on our recent work on continuous-wave searches in PTA data, this talk will discuss possible strategies for testing the origin of low-frequency CW candidates identified in recent EPTA and NANOGrav analyses, including the persistent 4 nHz feature. I will outline ideas for studying how candidate significance and coherence change across datasets and array combinations, with the aim of...

10. Eccentric binaries in PTA data: parameter estimation and interplay with the gravitational wave background

Sara Manzini (APC - Université Paris Cité)

03/06/2026 11:20

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...

2. Probing Supermassive Black Hole Mergers with Pulsar Timing Arrays

Hippolyte Jean Hugo Quelquejay-Leclere (Università degli Studi di Milano-Bicocca)

03/06/2026 11:40

By monitoring the times of arrival of radio pulses from millisecond pulsars, Pulsar Timing Arrays (PTAs) serve as unique gravitational wave (GW) laboratories in the nanohertz band. To date, the primary astrophysical sources of GWs targeted in this frequency range have been inspiraling supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) on circular and eccentric orbits. In this work, we demonstrate that,...

9. QuickGWecc: A fast Bayesian pipeline for searching continuous GWs from eccentric binaries in PTA data

Lankeswar Dey (Institute of Astrophysics, FORTH)

03/06/2026 12:00

Most searches for continuous gravitational waves (CGWs) from individual supermassive black hole binaries (SMBHBs) in pulsar timing array (PTA) data assume circular orbits, despite theoretical studies suggesting that these sources may retain significant eccentricity. In this talk, I will present QuickGWecc, a fast and efficient Bayesian pipeline for searching for CGWs from SMBHBs in...

3. Ongoing search for memory effect in IPTA-DR3

Adrien Cogez (CEA/IRFU/DPhP)

03/06/2026 12:20

The search for the non-linear memory effect, which is a permanent strain in spacetime that remains after the passage of a gravitational wave (GW), has been ongoing in PTA data for years, using a simple burst model. With the upcoming IPTA-DR3, a working group has been formed to research memories (both linear and nonlinear). In this talk, we will present the preliminary work carried out to...