Scalar-induced GWs with future PTA observations

by Chiara Cecchini

Wednesday 9 Apr 2025, 11:30 → 12:30 Europe/Zurich

4/2-011 - TH common room (CERN)

Pulsar Timing Arrays are playing a crucial role in the ongoing gravitational wave astronomy revolution. The current evidence for a stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) at nHz frequencies offers an opportunity to discover cosmological signals and threatens the observability of other subdominant GWs. We explore prospects to constrain second-order scalar-induced GWs (SIGWs) associated with enhanced curvature perturbations in the primordial universe, forecasting realistic future PTA datasets. We assess how the currently observed signal could eventually limit future capabilities to search for GW relics of primordial phenomena and associated phenomenological consequences such as primordial black hole (PBH) formation.