Exact equivalence of the observed redshift and the pulsar timing modulation in the infinitesimal-pulse limit
Abstract
The pulsar timing arrays (PTA) collect the times of arrival of radio signals from the millisecond pulsars, and gravitational waves can modulate their arrival times. Although the PTA observable involves successive radio pulses propagating along different light paths, its standard theoretical description at linear order in perturbations is equivalent to the Sachs–Wolfe formula for the observed redshift, which describes the fractional change in photon frequency along a single geodesic. While this equivalence is well known at linear order, its validity beyond first order has not been systematically addressed in the PTA literature. Here we show that, in the limit of vanishing proper-time separation between successive emission events, the timing modulation is exactly equal to the observed redshift, without expanding the spacetime geometry. For a finite emission interval, we derive the exact relation between the timing modulation and the observed redshift, and show that their difference is controlled by the ratio between the emission interval and the characteristic timescale over which the observed redshift varies.
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BibTeX
@article{magi2026exact,
title = {{Exact equivalence of the observed redshift and the pulsar timing modulation in the infinitesimal-pulse limit}},
author = {Matteo Magi and Jaiyul Yoo},
journal = {Physics Letters B},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1016/j.physletb.2026.141070},
url = {https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0370269326009202},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Exact equivalence of the observed redshift and the pulsar timing modulation in the infinitesimal-pulse limit
AU - Matteo Magi
AU - Jaiyul Yoo
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/30
JO - Physics Letters B
DO - 10.1016/j.physletb.2026.141070
UR - https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0370269326009202
AB - The pulsar timing arrays (PTA) collect the times of arrival of radio signals from the millisecond pulsars, and gravitational waves can modulate their arrival times. Although the PTA observable involves successive radio pulses propagating along different light paths, its standard theoretical description at linear order in perturbations is equivalent to the Sachs–Wolfe formula for the observed redshift, which describes the fractional change in photon frequency along a single geodesic. While this equivalence is well known at linear order, its validity beyond first order has not been systematically addressed in the PTA literature. Here we show that, in the limit of vanishing proper-time separation between successive emission events, the timing modulation is exactly equal to the observed redshift, without expanding the spacetime geometry. For a finite emission interval, we derive the exact relation between the timing modulation and the observed redshift, and show that their difference is controlled by the ratio between the emission interval and the characteristic timescale over which the observed redshift varies.
SN - 0370-2693
SN - 1873-2445
ER -