Published December 21, 2012 | Version Published + Accepted Version
Journal Article Open

Development of a pulsar-based time-scale

Abstract

Using observations of pulsars from the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) project we develop the first pulsar-based time-scale that has a precision comparable to the uncertainties in International Atomic Time-scales (TAI). Our ensemble of pulsars provides an Ensemble Pulsar Scale (EPS) analogous to the free atomic time-scale Échelle Atomique Libre. The EPS can be used to detect fluctuations in atomic time-scales and therefore can lead to a new realization of Terrestrial Time, TT(PPTA11). We successfully follow features known to affect the frequency of the TAI, and we find marginally significant differences between TT(PPTA11) and TT(BIPM11). We discuss the various phenomena that lead to a correlated signal in the pulsar timing residuals and therefore limit the stability of the pulsar time-scale.

Additional Information

© 2012 The Authors. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society © 2012 RAS. Accepted 2012 August 15. Received 2012 August 14; in original form 2012 June 8. Published: 21 December 2012. The Parkes radio telescope is part of the Australia Telescope which is funded by the Commonwealth of Australia for operation as a National Facility managed by CSIRO. The PPTA project was initiated with support from RNM's Australian Research Council (ARC) Federation Fellowship (FF0348478). GH acknowledges support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) #10803006 and #11010250 and the Australian Research Council #DP0878388. JPWV was supported by the European Union under Marie-Curie Intra-European Fellowship 236394. We thank the referee, Gérard Petit, for extremely useful comments on the paper.

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Accepted Version - 1208.3560.pdf

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Additional details

Additional titles

Alternative title
Development of a pulsar-based timescale

Identifiers

Eprint ID
36915
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20130214-090244663

Related works

Funding

Australian Research Council
FF0348478
National Natural Science Foundation of China
10803006
National Natural Science Foundation of China
11010250
Australian Research Council
DP0878388
Marie Curie Fellowship
236394

Dates

Created
2013-03-05
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-09
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