Designing an Optimal Kilonova Search Using DECam for Gravitational-wave Events
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Fecha
2024-02
Profesor/a Guía
Facultad/escuela
Idioma
en
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Editor
Institute of Physics
Nombre de Curso
Licencia CC
CC BY 4.0 ATTRIBUTION 4.0 INTERNATIONAL
Licencia CC
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Resumen
We address the problem of optimally identifying all kilonovae detected via gravitational-wave emission in the upcoming LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA observing run, O4, which is expected to be sensitive to a factor of ∼7 more binary neutron star (BNS) alerts than previously. Electromagnetic follow-up of all but the brightest of these new events will require >1 m telescopes, for which limited time is available. We present an optimized observing strategy for the DECam during O4. We base our study on simulations of gravitational-wave events expected for O4 and wide-prior kilonova simulations. We derive the detectabilities of events for realistic observing conditions. We optimize our strategy for confirming a kilonova while minimizing telescope time. For a wide range of kilonova parameters, corresponding to a fainter kilonova compared to GW170817/AT 2017gfo, we find that, with this optimal strategy, the discovery probability for electromagnetic counterparts with the DECam is ∼80% at the nominal BNS gravitational-wave detection limit for O4 (190 Mpc), which corresponds to an ∼30% improvement compared to the strategy adopted during the previous observing run. For more distant events (∼330 Mpc), we reach an ∼60% probability of detection, a factor of ∼2 increase. For a brighter kilonova model dominated by the blue component that reproduces the observations of GW170817/AT 2017gfo, we find that we can reach ∼90% probability of detection out to 330 Mpc, representing an increase of ∼20%, while also reducing the total telescope time required to follow up events by ∼20%. © 2024. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
Notas
Indexación: Scopus.
Palabras clave
Neutron Stars, Gravitational Wave, Circumstellar Disk
Citación
Astrophysical Journal Open Access Volume 960, Issue 21 January 2024 Article number 122
DOI
10.3847/1538-4357/ad0462