A transdimensional sampling framework for pulsar timing noise modelling

TL;DR

This paper introduces tPTABilby, a transdimensional Bayesian framework for pulsar noise analysis that improves model selection and parameter estimation, validated through simulations and real data application.

Contribution

It presents a novel transdimensional sampling method integrated into a pulsar noise analysis framework, enabling flexible, unified noise modeling and model selection.

Findings

Accurately recovers known noise models in simulations.

Demonstrates consistent results with existing PTA analyses.

Provides a robust, flexible approach for pulsar noise characterization.

Abstract

A careful characterisation of the noise processes in pulsar timing data is a prerequisite for pulsar timing array experiments. While single-pulsar noise analyses are crucial for both gravitational-wave searches and astrophysical studies, they are often computationally intensive and rely on running and comparing multiple fixed noise models. We present tPTABilby, a transdimensional Bayesian inference framework for single-pulsar noise analysis built on the Bilby library. The method flexibly models a wide range of noise processes like radiometer noise, pulse-phase jitter, intrinsic red noise, dispersion measure variations, and chromatic interstellar medium effects. By employing transdimensional sampling, tPTABilby simultaneously infers the number and type of active noise sources, providing a unified treatment of model selection and parameter estimation. We validate the methodology through simulations with known injected noise models, demonstrating accurate recovery of model probabilities and calibrated posterior distributions. We then apply this approach to a single pulsar, PSR J1713+0747, from a MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array (MPTA) dataset, analysing the data with both tPTABilby and Enterprise, and subsequently compare the results with existing MPTA analyses through posterior predictive checks of the inferred noise spectra. Our results highlight the flexibility of transdimensional approaches to single-pulsar noise analysis, demonstrating consistency with standard fixed-model methods while providing a more statistically robust framework, and present tPTABilby as a simple and reproducible approach for PTA inference.