Indian Pulsar Timing Array Experiment (InPTA) is a pulsar timing experiment searching for low frequency nanoHz Gravitational Waves in operation since 2016. InPTA is a Indo-Japanese collaboration which makes use of the unique capabilities of the upgraded Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) for monitoring a sample of nearby millisecond pulsars for this purpose. InPTA is a member of International Pulsar Timing collaboration (IPTA). The Aitoff map on the right shows all the pulsars observed for the experiment.

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Recent Highlights

Indian Pulsar Timing Array charts interstellar weather to capture black hole symphony

Indian Pulsar Timing Array recently released its first collection of precise measurements of variations in interstellar weather as part of their efforts to discover ultra-long period Gravitational Waves. This data release stems from three and a half years of observation using the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) operated by NCRA-TIFR near Pune. The uGMRT allows InPTA to do simultaneous observations in multibands recording parallely, giving InPTa the unique strength to measure interstellar electron densities with the highest precisions making a critical addition to the combined international efforts in discovering long-period gravitational waves which could just be hidden... Read More

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Wide-band Timing

High-precision measurements of the pulsar dispersion measure (DM) are possible using telescopes with low-frequency wideband receivers. We present an initial study of the application of the wideband timing technique, which can simultaneously measure the pulsar times of arrival (ToAs) and DMs, for a set of five pulsars observed with the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT) as part of the Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA) campaign.

We obtain high precision in DM measurements with precisions of the order 10-6cm-3pc. The ToAs obtained have sub-μs precision and the root-mean-square of the post-fit ToA residuals are in the sub-μs range. We find that the uncertainties in the DMs and ToAs obtained with this wideband technique, applied to low-frequency data, are consistent with the results obtained with traditional pulsar timing techniques and comparable to high-frequency results from other PTAs. This work opens up an interesting possibility of using low-frequency wideband observations for precision pulsar timing and gravitational wave detection with similar precision as high-frequency observations used conventionally. Read the full article here.

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Press releases

  • Indian Pulsar Timing Array charts interstellar weather to capture black hole symphony new
  • The uGMRT confirms an unexpected event in millisecond pulsars - the cosmic clocks
  • India first Asian country to join International Pulsar Timing Array with uGMRT
  • Pulsars help detect space weather disruptions triggered by Sun
  • In a first, uGMRT helps Indian astronomers detect Coronal Mass Ejection effect on pulsars

    • IPTA Meeting - 2019 hosted by NCRA, Pune

    The 10th International Pulsar Timing Array (IPTA) workshop was held in Pune, India between June 10 to 21, 2019. The IPTA consortium consists of established Pulsar Timing Array (PTA) efforts, that include the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA), the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), and the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA) as well as the emerging efforts like the Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA), South African Pulsar Timing Array and the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array. The IPTA consortium aims to detect gravitational waves using an ensemble of millisecond pulsars located in our Galaxy. This meeting was hosted by InPTA at the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics, Pune, India,

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