Pulsar timing arrays and the cosmological constant

Abstract

In this talk I review how a non-zero cosmological constant Λ effects the propagation of gravitational waves and their detection in pulsar timing arrays (PTA). If Λ ≠ 0 it turns out that waves are anharmonic in cosmological Friedmann-Robertson- Walker coordinates and although the amount of anharmonicity is very small it leads to potentially measurable effects. The timing residuals induced by gravitational waves in PTA would show a peculiar angular dependence with a marked enhancement around a particular value of the angle subtended by the source and the pulsars. This angle depends mainly on the actual value of the cosmological constant and the distance to the source. Preliminary estimates indicate that the enhancement can be rather notorious for supermassive black hole mergers and in fact it could facilitate the first direct detection of gravitational waves while at the same time representing a 'local' measurement of Λ.