J/ApJ/924/54 LIGO/Virgo third observing run (O3) public alerts (Petrov+, 2022)
Data-driven expectations for electromagnetic counterpart searches based on
LIGO/Virgo public alerts.
Petrov P., Singer L.P., Coughlin M.W., Kumar V., Almualla M., Anand S.,
Bulla M., Dietrich T., Foucart F., Guessoum N.
<Astrophys. J., 924, 54 (2022)>
=2022ApJ...924...54P 2022ApJ...924...54P
ADC_Keywords: Gravitational wave; Stars, neutron; Black holes; Stars, distances
Keywords: Astronomical simulations ; Gravitational wave astronomy ;
Optical observatories ; Neutron stars ; Stellar mass black holes
Abstract:
Searches for electromagnetic counterparts of gravitational-wave
signals have redoubled since the first detection in 2017 of a binary
neutron star merger with a gamma-ray burst, optical/infrared kilonova,
and panchromatic afterglow. Yet, one LIGO/Virgo observing run later,
there has not yet been a second, secure identification of an
electromagnetic counterpart. This is not surprising given that the
localization uncertainties of events in LIGO and Virgo's third
observing run, O3, were much larger than predicted. We explain this by
showing that improvements in data analysis that now allow LIGO/Virgo
to detect weaker and hence more poorly localized events have increased
the overall number of detections, of which well-localized, gold-plated
events make up a smaller proportion overall. We present simulations of
the next two LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA observing runs, O4 and O5, that are
grounded in the statistics of O3 public alerts. To illustrate the
significant impact that the updated predictions can have, we study the
follow-up strategy for the Zwicky Transient Facility. Realistic and
timely forecasting of gravitational-wave localization accuracy is
paramount given the large commitments of telescope time and the need
to prioritize which events are followed up. We include a data release
of our simulated localizations as a public proposal planning resource
for astronomers.
Description:
We check our simulation by comparing the predicted distribution for
Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)'s
and Advanced Virgo's third observing run (O3) to the measured
empirical distribution of LIGO/Virgo public alerts. All of the
retrieved alerts are listed in Table 1.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table1.dat 60 55 Public alerts in O3
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See also:
J/ApJ/795/105 : Electromagnetic follow-up with LIGO/Virgo (Singer+, 2014)
J/ApJ/804/114 : Parameter-estimation performance with LIGO (Berry+, 2015)
J/ApJ/904/155 : gri photometry for 32 kilonovae with ZTF (Andreoni+, 2020)
J/ApJ/905/145 : ZTF candidate counterparts to 13 GW follow-up (Kasliwal+, 2020)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 9 A9 --- ID Superevent identifier
11- 14 A4 --- Class Source classification (1)
16- 19 I4 Mpc Dist [110/5700] Mean a posteriori luminosity
distance
21- 25 I5 deg2 Area [38/24000] 90% credible area
27- 33 F7.2 10+6Mpc3 Volume [0.17/7600]? 90% credible comoving volume (2)
35- 37 I3 % HasNS [0/100] Prob. at least one component
<3M☉
39- 41 I3 % Remnant [0/100] Prob. that source tidally disrupted
a NS (3)
43- 45 I3 % BNS [0/100] Prob. both components are 1-3M☉
(4)
47- 49 I3 % NSBH [0/100] Prob. one mass 1-3M☉ and one
>5M☉ (4)
51- 53 I3 % BBH [0/100] Prob. both masses >5M☉ (4)
55- 57 I3 % MassGap [0/100] Prob. one or both masses are
3-5M☉ (4)
59- 60 I2 % Terr [0/98] Prob. of a non-astrophysical event (4)
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Note (1): Classification as follows:
BBH = Binary black hole; both component masses >5M☉ (40 occurrences)
BNS = Binary neutron star; two components of masses 1-3M☉
(8 occurrences)
NSBH = neutron star-black hole; one component with a mass of 1-3M☉
and the other >5M☉ (7 occurrences)
Note (2): A blank indicates an infinite volume.
Note (3): Without immediately plunging into a final black hole.
Note (4): These five fields together must sum to 100%.
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 09-Aug-2023