Milky Way Accelerometry via Millisecond Pulsar Timing

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that millisecond pulsars can be used as precise galactic accelerometers, enabling direct measurement of local galactic acceleration and informing dark matter distribution in the Milky Way.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method of using pulsar timing to measure galactic acceleration, combining spin and orbital data for improved accuracy.

Findings

Achieved 1σ acceleration sensitivity with 117 pulsars.

Validated acceleration measurements using binary pulsar orbital periods.

Paves the way for mapping dark matter density in the Milky Way.

Abstract

The temporal stability of millisecond pulsars is remarkable, rivaling even some terrestrial atomic clocks at long timescales. Using this property, we show that millisecond pulsars distributed in the galactic neighborhood form an ensemble of accelerometers from which we can directly extract the local galactic acceleration. From pulsar spin period measurements, we demonstrate acceleration sensitivity with about 1$\sigma$ precision using 117 pulsars. We also present results from a complementary analysis using orbital periods of 13 binary pulsar systems that eliminates systematics associated with pulsar braking. This work is a first step toward dynamically measuring acceleration gradients that will eventually inform us about the dark matter density distribution in the Milky Way galaxy.