Constraints on primordial curvature power spectrum with pulsar timing arrays

Abstract

Abstract The stochastic signal detected by NANOGrav, PPTA, EPTA, and CPTA can be explained by the scalar-induced gravitational waves. In order to determine the scalar-induced gravitational waves model that best fits the stochastic signal, we employ both single- and double-peak parameterizations for the power spectrum of the primordial curvature perturbations, where the single-peak scenarios include the δ-function, box, lognormal, and broken power law model, and the double-peak scenario is described by the double lognormal form. Using Bayesian inference, we find that there is no significant evidence for or against the single-peak scenario over the double-peak model, with log (Bayes factors) among these models ln ℬ < 1. Therefore, we cannot distinguish the different shapes of the power spectrum of the primordial curvature perturbation with the current sensitivity of pulsar timing arrays.