MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array

The MeerKAT Pulsar Timing Array (MPTA) is a pulsar timing array (PTA), a selected group of pulsars, and an effort to record the timing of the pulsars' cycles using MeerKAT in South Africa, and to compare and analyze their timing histories to detect gravitational waves. The array consists of eighty-eight millisecond pulsars. Data collection began in 2022. MPTA is part of a MeerKAT survey of pulsar timing called MeerTime.

PTAs as gravitational-wave detectors are sensitive to a different range of frequencies than LIGO's and Virgo's 10-10000 Hz regime: the range for PTAs is microhertz and slower (e.g., nanohertz gravitational waves), the presumed detectable sources being binary SMBHs with orbits in this frequency range.

Before the name of the project was settled upon, the names MeerTime Pulsar Timing Array and South African Pulsar Timing Array (SAPTA) were sometimes used.