GW190814 follow-up with the optical telescope MeerLICHT

Autor: Marc Klein-Wolt, Kerry Paterson, Elmar Körding, S. de Wet, R. S. Le Poole, D. L. A. Pieterse, Steven Bloemen, Vanessa McBride, Paul J. Groot, Patrick A. Woudt, Paul Vreeswijk
Rok vydání: 2021
Předmět:
Zdroj: Astronomy & Astrophysics, 649, 1-7
Astronomy and Astrophysics, 649, 1-7
Astronomy & Astrophysics, 649, pp. 1-7
ISSN: 1432-0746
0004-6361
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202040231
Popis: The Advanced LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave observatories detected a signal on 2019 August 14 during their third observing run, named GW190814. A large number of electromagnetic facilities conducted follow-up campaigns in the search for a possible counterpart to the gravitational wave event, which was made especially promising given the early source classification of a neutron star-black hole merger.We present the results of the GW follow-up campaign taken with the wide-field optical telescope MeerLICHT, located at the South African Astronomical Observatory Sutherland site. We use our results to constrain possible kilonova models. MeerLICHT observed more than 95% of the probability localisation each night for over a week in three optical bands (u,q,i) with our initial observations beginning almost 2 hours after the GW detection. We describe the search for new transients in MeerLICHT data and investigate how our limiting magnitudes can be used to constrain an AT2017gfo-like kilonova. A single new transient was found in our analysis of MeerLICHT data, which we exclude from being the electromagnetic counterpart to GW190814 due to the existence of a spatially unresolved source at the transient's coordinates in archival data. Using our limiting magnitudes, the confidence with which we can exclude the presence of an AT2017gfo-like kilonova at the distance of GW190814 was low ($
19 pages, 6 figures, accepted by A&A
Databáze: OpenAIRE