News from the Pulsar Timing Array Frontier

by Kai Schmitz (Munster U., ITP and Tokyo U., IPMU)

Tuesday 28 Jul 2026, 15:00 → 17:00 Asia/Shanghai

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摘要：I will review the 2023 pulsar timing array (PTA) evidence for a stochastic gravitational-wave background at nanohertz frequencies and discuss how PTA observations allow us to search for new particle and gravitational physics, including: (1) physics beyond the Standard Model in the early Universe, (2) dark matter in our galaxy and in the vicinity of supermassive black-hole binaries, and (3) scenarios of modified gravity. Along the way, I will present new gravitational-wave templates for certain signal hypotheses and recommend best practices for the analysis of future PTA data sets.

个人简介：Kai Schmitz is a theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and professor at the University of Münster. His research focuses on the physics of the early universe and, in particular, the generation of primordial gravitational waves (GWs). As a member of the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), he was involved in the announcement of new evidence for the existence of a GW background in our Universe in 2023. Within NANOGrav, he co-leads the New Physics Working Group, which searches for a GW echo of the Big Bang in the NANOGrav data.