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Register a new userLSST Target-of-Opportunity Observations of Gravitational Wave Events: Essential and Efficient
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Philip Cowperthwaite
Publication date
2018
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
Authors
P. S. Cowperthwaite
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We present simulated observations to assess the ability of LSST and the WFD survey to detect and characterize kilonovae - the optical emission associated with binary neutron star (and possibly black hole - neutron star) mergers. We expand on previous studies in several critical ways by exploring a range of kilonova models and several choices of cadence, as well as by evaluating the information content of the resulting light curves. We find that, depending on the precise choice of cadence, the WFD survey will achieve an average kilonova detection efficiency of $approx 1.6-2.5%$ and detect only $approx 3-6$ kilonovae per year. The detected kilonovae will be within the detection volume of Advanced LIGO/Virgo (ALV). By refitting the best resulting LSST light curves with the same model used to generate them we find the model parameters are generally weakly constrained, and are accurate to at best a factor of $2-3$. Motivated by the finding that the WFD will yield a small number of kilonova detections, with poor light curves and marginal information content, and that the detections are in any case inside the ALV volume, we argue that target-of-opportunity follow-up of gravitational wave triggers is a much more effective approach for kilonova studies. We outline the qualitative foundation for such a program with the goal of minimizing the impact on LSST operations. We argue that observations in the $gz$-bands with a total time investment per event of $approx 1.5$ hour per 10 deg$^2$ of search area is sufficient to rapidly detect and identify kilonovae with $gtrsim 90%$ efficiency. For an estimated event rate of $sim20$ per year visible to LSST, this accounts for $sim1.5%$ of the total survey time. In this regime, LSST has the potential to be a powerful tool for kilonovae discovery, with detected events handed off to other narrow-field facilities for further monitoring.
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The discovery of the electromagnetic counterparts to the binary neutron star merger GW170817 has opened the era of GW+EM multi-messenger astronomy. Exploiting this breakthrough requires increasing samples to explore the diversity of kilonova behaviour and provide more stringent constraints on the Hubble constant, and tests of fundamental physics. LSST can play a key role in this field in the 2020s, when the gravitational wave detector network is expected to detect higher rates of merger events involving neutron stars ($sim$10s per year) out to distances of several hundred Mpc. Here we propose comprehensive target-of-opportunity (ToOs) strategies for follow-up of gravitational-wave sources that will make LSST the premiere machine for discovery and early characterization for neutron star mergers and other gravitational-wave sources.
The simultaneous detection of electromagnetic and gravitational waves from the coalescence of two neutron stars (GW170817 and GRB170817A) has ushered in a new era of multi-messenger astronomy, with electromagnetic detections spanning from gamma to radio. This great opportunity for new scientific investigations raises the issue of how the available multi-messenger tools can best be integrated to constitute a powerful method to study the transient universe in particular. To facilitate the classification of possible optical counterparts to gravitational-wave events, it is important to optimize the scheduling of observations and the filtering of transients, both key elements of the follow-up process. In this work, we describe the existing workflow whereby telescope networks such as GRANDMA and GROWTH are currently scheduled; we then present modifications we have developed for the scheduling process specifically, so as to face the relevant challenges that have appeared during the latest observing run of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. We address issues with scheduling more than one epoch for multiple fields within a skymap, especially for large and disjointed localizations. This is done in two ways: by optimizing the maximum number of fields that can be scheduled, and by splitting up the lobes within the skymap by right ascension to be scheduled individually. In addition, we implement the ability to take previously observed fields into consideration when rescheduling. We show the improvements that these modifications produce in making the search for optical counterparts more efficient, and we point to areas needing further improvement.
We present detailed simulations of black hole-neutron star (BH-NS) mergers kilonova and gamma-ray burst (GRB) afterglow and kilonova luminosity function, and discuss the detectability of electromagnetic (EM) counterpart in connection with gravitational wave (GW) detections, GW-triggered target-of-opportunity observations, and time-domain blind searches. The predicted absolute magnitude of the BH-NS kilonovae at $0.5,{rm days}$ after the merger falls in $[-10,-15.5]$. The simulated luminosity function contains the potential viewing-angle distribution information of the anisotropic kilonova emission. We simulate the GW detection rates, detectable distances and signal duration, for the future networks of 2nd/2.5th/3rd-generation GW detectors. BH-NSs tend to produce brighter kilonovae and afterglows if the BH has a higher aligned-spin, and a less massive NS with a stiffer EoS. The detectability of kilonova is especially sensitive to the BH spin. If BHs typically have low spins, the BH-NS EM counterparts are hard to discover. For the 2nd generation GW detector networks, a limiting magnitude of $m_{rm limit}sim23-24,{rm mag}$ is required to detect the kilonovae even if BH high spin is assumed. Thus, a plausible explanation for the lack of BH-NS associated kilonova detection during LIGO/Virgo O3 is that either there is no EM counterpart (plunging events), or the current follow-ups are too shallow. These observations still have the chance to detect the on-axis jet afterglow associated with an sGRB or an orphan afterglow. Follow-up observations can detect possible associated sGRB afterglows, from which kilonova signatures may be studied. For time-domain observations, a high-cadence search in redder filters is recommended to detect more BH-NS associated kilonovae and afterglows.
We present the first multi-wavelength follow-up observations of two candidate gravitational-wave (GW) transient events recorded by LIGO and Virgo in their 2009-2010 science run. The events were selected with low latency by the network of GW detectors and their candidate sky locations were observed by the Swift observatory. Image transient detection was used to analyze the collected electromagnetic data, which were found to be consistent with background. Off-line analysis of the GW data alone has also established that the selected GW events show no evidence of an astrophysical origin; one of them is consistent with background and the other one was a test, part of a blind injection challenge. With this work we demonstrate the feasibility of rapid follow-ups of GW transients and establish the sensitivity improvement joint electromagnetic and GW observations could bring. This is a first step toward an electromagnetic follow-up program in the regime of routine detections with the advanced GW instruments expected within this decade. In that regime multi-wavelength observations will play a significant role in completing the astrophysical identification of GW sources. We present the methods and results from this first combined analysis and discuss its implications in terms of sensitivity for the present and future instruments.
Recently we have witnessed the first multi-messenger detection of colliding neutron stars through Gravitational Waves (GWs) and Electromagnetic (EM) waves (GW170817), thanks to the joint efforts of LIGO/Virgo and Space/Ground-based telescopes. In this paper, we report on the RATIR followup observation strategies and show the results for the trigger G194575. This trigger is not of astrophysical interest; however, is of great interests to the robust design of a followup engine to explore large sky error regions. We discuss the development of an image-subtraction pipeline for the 6-color, optical/NIR imaging camera RATIR. Considering a two band ($i$ and $r$) campaign in the Fall of 2015, we find that the requirement of simultaneous detection in both bands leads to a factor $sim$10 reduction in false alarm rate, which can be further reduced using additional bands. We also show that the performance of our proposed algorithm is robust to fluctuating observing conditions, maintaining a low false alarm rate with a modest decrease in system efficiency that can be overcome utilizing repeat visits. Expanding our pipeline to search for either optical or NIR detections (3 or more bands), considering separately the optical $riZ$ and NIR $YJH$ bands, should result in a false alarm rate $approx 1%$ and an efficiency $approx 90%$. RATIRs simultaneous optical/NIR observations are expected to yield about one candidate transient in the vast 100 $mathrm{deg^2}$ LIGO error region for prioritized followup with larger aperture telescopes.
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