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Reposted by Matt Miles

Rowina Nathan ✨ @pinkastrophysicist.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

I made this website for the MeerKAT PTA. Check it out! mpta-gw.github.io

mpta-gw.github.io

MPTA

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Reposted by Matt Miles

Ryan Shannon @ryanmshannon.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

When we started MSP precision timing with MeerKAT in 2018, we knew it would be a fantastic telescope for a pulsar timing array, but did not know when it would become sensitive to gravitational waves. The timing baseline with MeerKAT would always be much shorter than other established PTAs.

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Matt Miles @astromattmiles.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Some of the pulsars are the same, but most of ours are in the Southern Hemisphere where NANOGrav struggles to look! We use similar techniques, but a different telescope (the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa) New physics would be amazing! But it might still be a ways away

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Matt Miles @astromattmiles.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Yep! There are a bunch of collaborations across the world searching for gravitational waves in this way, ours is among the youngest and this is our first search! Our findings do broadly agree with NANOGrav though!

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Reposted by Matt Miles

CosmicRami 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ @rami.spaceaustralia.com · 03/12/2024

MOAR EVIDENCE FOR THE GRAVITATIONAL WAVE BACKGROUND! Using MeerKAT (super sensitive telescope array) the MPTA team have also found supporting evidence (with their assumptions and models) of the GWB that other PTAs announced last year. This is further independent verification! The Universe rattles!

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Matt Miles @astromattmiles.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

For the past few years I've been leading the first gravitational wave searches with the MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array (mpta-gw.github.io/index.html). It's been an incredibly rewarding experience, and today the research is published!

mpta-gw.github.io

MPTA

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Reposted by Matt Miles

Rowina Nathan ✨ @pinkastrophysicist.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

What generates the gravitational waves that make up the background? It is probably supermassive black-hole binaries and/or early Universe physics. We don't know yet but it is likely a combination of both! 💥 It's paper release day tomorrow! Excited to share with you all!

A graphic comparing gravitational wave background sources. The left shows a black hole binary and the right shows some bubbles. The text on the left reads "SUPERMASSIVE BLACK
HOLE BINARIES
Extraordinarily massive black holes in the center of galaxies orbiting eachother,
GW Signal: Anisotropic Different in different directions
Allows us to study: Galaxy formation, mass distribution of Universe, gravity"
The text on the right reads "PRIMORDIAL UNIVERSE
PHYSICS
Colisions between 'bubbles' in the hot, dense, 'boiling' early Universe soup
*+ GW Signal: Isotropic - Same in all directions
Allows us to study: The Big Bang, early
Universe, particle physics"

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