Searching for electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational-wave merger events with the prototype Gravitational-Wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO-4)

Autor: Justyn R. Maund, R. Eyles-Ferris, U. Burhanudin, G. Ramsay, Puji Irawati, Enric Palle, Benjamin P. Gompertz, A. Obradovic, Utane Sawangwit, T. Heikkilä, T. Killestein, Richard G. West, James McCormac, Seppo Mattila, James Mullaney, Saran Poshyachinda, Rubina Kotak, Kendall Ackley, Michael J. I. Brown, Bernhard Müller, A. Chrimes, Klaas Wiersema, L. K. Nuttall, Elizabeth R. Stanway, Christopher J. Duffy, E. Thrane, T. R. Marsh, Rene P. Breton, V. S. Dhillon, Supachai Awiphan, S. Tooke, P. T. O'Brien, E. J. Daw, J. D. Lyman, P. A. Strøm, K. Ulaczyk, Duncan K. Galloway, Martin Dyer, Andrew J. Levan, D. Mata Sánchez, Mark Kennedy, Don Pollacco, R. L. C. Starling, Y. L. Mong, E. Rol, D. Steeghs, Paul Chote, R. Cutter, S. Aukkaravittayapun, David Mkrtichian, S. P. Littlefair, L. Makrygianni
Rok vydání: 2020
Předmět:
Zdroj: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 497, 1, pp. 726-738
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Gompertz, B P, Cutter, R, Steeghs, D, Galloway, D K, Lyman, J, Ulaczyk, K, Dyer, M J, Ackley, K, Dhillon, V S, O'Brien, P T, Ramsay, G, Poshyachinda, S, Kotak, R, Nuttall, L, Breton, R P, Pallé, E, Pollacco, D, Thrane, E, Aukkaravittayapun, S, Awiphan, S, Burhanudin, U, Chote, P, Chrimes, A A, Daw, E, Duffy, C, Eyles-Ferris, R A J, Heikkilä, T, Irawati, P, Kennedy, M R, Killestein, T, Levan, A J, Littlefair, S, Makrygianni, L, Marsh, T, Sánchez, D M, Mattila, S, Maund, J, McCormac, J, Mkrtichian, D, Mong, Y-L, Mullaney, J, Müller, B, Obradovic, A, Rol, E, Sawangwit, U, Stanway, E R, Starling, R L C, Strøm, P, Tooke, S, West, R & Wiersema, K 2020, ' Searching for electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational-wave merger events with the prototype Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO-4) ', Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 497, no. 1, pp. 726-738 . https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa1845
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 497, 726-738
ISSN: 0035-8711
1745-3933
Popis: We report the results of optical follow-up observations of 29 gravitational-wave triggers during the first half of the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration (LVC) O3 run with the Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO) in its prototype 4-telescope configuration (GOTO-4). While no viable electromagnetic counterpart candidate was identified, we estimate our 3D (volumetric) coverage using test light curves of on- and off-axis gamma-ray bursts and kilonovae. In cases where the source region was observable immediately, GOTO-4 was able to respond to a GW alert in less than a minute. The average time of first observation was $8.79$ hours after receiving an alert ($9.90$ hours after trigger). A mean of $732.3$ square degrees were tiled per event, representing on average $45.3$ per cent of the LVC probability map, or $70.3$ per cent of the observable probability. This coverage will further improve as the facility scales up alongside the localisation performance of the evolving gravitational-wave detector network. Even in its 4-telescope prototype configuration, GOTO is capable of detecting AT2017gfo-like kilonovae beyond 200~Mpc in favourable observing conditions. We cannot currently place meaningful electromagnetic limits on the population of distant ($\hat{D}_L = 1.3$~Gpc) binary black hole mergers because our test models are too faint to recover at this distance. However, as GOTO is upgraded towards its full 32-telescope, 2 node (La Palma \& Australia) configuration, it is expected to be sufficiently sensitive to cover the predicted O4 binary neutron star merger volume, and will be able to respond to both northern and southern triggers.
15 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Author's final submitted version
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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