Detecting Gravitational Waves with Pulsars: NANOGrav Status and an Intriguing New Technique

Dan Stinebring

March 28, 2011

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Abstract: Millisecond pulsars provide a powerful way to directly detect gravitational waves by looking for microsecond variations in their timing signals that are coordinated across the sky. NANOGrav is the group of North American astronomers trying to do this with Arecibo and NRAO/GBT observations. I will bring you up-to-date on NANOGrav’s first five years of results, highlighting some of the challenges we face. I will also briefly discuss a new method that may allow us to correct for microsecond delays due to interstellar scattering.