An ASKAP Search for a Radio Counterpart to the First High-significance Neutron Star–Black Hole Merger LIGO/Virgo S190814bv

Dobie, Dougal; Stewart, A.; Murphy, Tara; Lenc, E.; Wang, Ziteng; Kaplan, David L.; Andreoni, Igor; Banfield, Julie; Brown, Ian; Corsi, A.; De, Kishalay; Goldstein, Daniel A.; Hallinan, Gregg; Hotan, A. W.; Hotokezaka, Kenta; Jaodand, Amruta; Karambelkar, Viraj; Kasliwal, M. M.; McConnell, D.; Mooley, K. P.; Moss, V. A.; Newman, Jeffrey A.; Perley, D.; Prakash, Abhishek; Pritchard, Joshua; Sadler, E. M.; Sharma, Y.; Ward, Charlotte; Whiting, M. T.; Zhou, Rongpu

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/ab59db

Cited by 70 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…They are able to rule out typical on-axis sGRBs but would not have detected a KN similar to AT2017gfo at the distance of S190814bv. Dobie et al (2019) present their search for radio transients using ASKAP. They find a single significant transient, AT2019osy, which they suggest is likely associated with a low luminosity AGN.…”

Section: Comparison To Other Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The relatively small localisation region led to a world-wide follow-up effort with optical and NIR telescopes (e.g. Gomez et al 2019a;Andreoni et al 2020;Dobie et al 2019;Watson et al 2020;Antier et al 2020;Vieira et al 2020). The ENGRAVE collaboration activated its search programmes to try to discover, or set limits on, an EM counterpart to S190814bv.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Observational constraints on the optical and near-infrared emission from the neutron star–black hole binary merger candidate S190814bv

Ackley

Amati²,

Barbieri

et al. 2020

A&A

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Context. Gravitational wave (GW) astronomy has rapidly reached maturity, becoming a fundamental observing window for modern astrophysics. The coalescences of a few tens of black hole (BH) binaries have been detected, while the number of events possibly including a neutron star (NS) is still limited to a few. On 2019 August 14, the LIGO and Virgo interferometers detected a high-significance event labelled S190814bv. A preliminary analysis of the GW data suggests that the event was likely due to the merger of a compact binary system formed by a BH and a NS. Aims. In this paper, we present our extensive search campaign aimed at uncovering the potential optical and near infrared electromagnetic counterpart of S190814bv. We found no convincing electromagnetic counterpart in our data. We therefore use our non-detection to place limits on the properties of the putative outflows that could have been produced by the binary during and after the merger. Methods. Thanks to the three-detector observation of S190814bv, and given the characteristics of the signal, the LIGO and Virgo Collaborations delivered a relatively narrow localisation in low latency – a 50% (90%) credible area of 5 deg2 (23 deg2) – despite the relatively large distance of 267 ± 52 Mpc. ElectromagNetic counterparts of GRAvitational wave sources at the VEry Large Telescope collaboration members carried out an intensive multi-epoch, multi-instrument observational campaign to identify the possible optical and near infrared counterpart of the event. In addition, the ATLAS, GOTO, GRAWITA-VST, Pan-STARRS, and VINROUGE projects also carried out a search on this event. In this paper, we describe the combined observational campaign of these groups. Results. Our observations allow us to place limits on the presence of any counterpart and discuss the implications for the kilonova (KN), which was possibly generated by this NS–BH merger, and for the strategy of future searches. The typical depth of our wide-field observations, which cover most of the projected sky localisation probability (up to 99.8%, depending on the night and filter considered), is r ∼ 22 (resp. K ∼ 21) in the optical (resp. near infrared). We reach deeper limits in a subset of our galaxy-targeted observations, which cover a total ∼50% of the galaxy-mass-weighted localisation probability. Altogether, our observations allow us to exclude a KN with large ejecta mass M ≳ 0.1 M⊙ to a high (> 90%) confidence, and we can exclude much smaller masses in a sub-sample of our observations. This disfavours the tidal disruption of the neutron star during the merger. Conclusions. Despite the sensitive instruments involved in the campaign, given the distance of S190814bv, we could not reach sufficiently deep limits to constrain a KN comparable in luminosity to AT 2017gfo on a large fraction of the localisation probability. This suggests that future (likely common) events at a few hundred megaparsecs will be detected only by large facilities with both a high sensitivity and large field of view. Galaxy-targeted observations can reach the needed depth over a relevant portion of the localisation probability with a smaller investment of resources, but the number of galaxies to be targeted in order to get a fairly complete coverage is large, even in the case of a localisation as good as that of this event.

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Section: Comparison To Other Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observational constraints on the optical and near-infrared emission from the neutron star–black hole binary merger candidate S190814bv

Ackley

Amati²,

Barbieri

et al. 2020

A&A

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“…3), or 78 per cent of the earlier BAYESTAR map. In addition to the standard tiling algorithm, observations were planned to cover rising radio source and optical transient AT 2019osy (also known as ASKAP 005547−270433) which had been announced (Stewart et al 2019;Andreoni et al 2019a;Dobie et al 2019); this source was not detected in X-rays (upper limit of 2.0 × 10 −3 count s −1 ; also undetected by Chandra: Jaodand et al 2019), with only the nearby galaxy visible in the UVOT data (Evans et al 2019e). In total, 94 X-ray sources were detected, with 32 Rank 4, 60 Rank 3 -and two Rank 2 sources (that is, sources marked as possible afterglows), sources 2 and 99 in the field.…”

Section: S190814bv (Gw 190814)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Swift-XRT follow-up of gravitational wave triggers during the third aLIGO/Virgo observing run

Page

Evans

Tohuvavohu

et al. 2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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The Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory followed up 18 gravitational wave (GW) triggers from the LIGO/Virgo collaboration during the O3 observing run in 2019/2020, performing approximately 6500 pointings in total. Of these events, four where finally classified (if real) as binary black hole (BH) triggers, six as binary neutron star (NS) events, two each of NSBH and Mass Gap triggers, one an unmodelled (Burst) trigger, and the remaining three were subsequently retracted. Thus far, four of these O3 triggers have been formally confirmed as real gravitational wave events. While no likely electromagnetic counterparts to any of these GW events have been identified in the X-ray data (to an average upper limit of 3.60 × 10−12 erg cm−2 s−1 over 0.3–10 keV), or at other wavelengths, we present a summary of all the Swift-XRT observations performed during O3, together with typical upper limits for each trigger observed. The majority of X-ray sources detected during O3 were previously uncatalogued; while some of these will be new (transient) sources, others are simply too faint to have been detected by earlier survey missions such as ROSAT. The all-sky survey currently being performed by eROSITA will be a very useful comparison for future observing runs, reducing the number of apparent candidate X-ray counterparts by up to 95 per cent.

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“…Numerous wide-field follow-up missions have tiled GW error boxes searching for transients, including the All-Sky Automated Survery for Supernovae (ASASSN; Shappee et al 2014), the Asteroid Terrestrial impact Last Alert System (ATLAS; Tonry et al 2018), the Deca-Degree Optical Transient Imager (DDOTI; Watson et al 2016), the Dark Energy Survey (DES; Dark Energy Survey Collaboration et al 2016), the Global Rapid Advanced Network Devoted to the Multimessenger Addicts (GRANDMA; Antier et al 2020b), KMT-Net (Kim et al 2016), the Mobile Astronomical System of TElescope Robots (MASTER; Lipunov et al 2010), MeerLICHT (Bloemen et al 2016), PanSTARRS (Kaiser et al 2010), Searches After Gravitational waves Using ARizona Observatories (SAGUARO; Lundquist et al 2019), the Télescope à Action Rapide pour les Objets Transitoires (TAROT; Boër 2001), the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA;Sutherland et al 2015), the VLT Survey Telescope (VST; Capaccioli & Schipani 2011) and the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF; Bellm et al 2019). No associated transients were identified (Anand et al 2020;Antier et al 2020b,a;Coughlin et al 2020;Sagués Carracedo et al 2020), but constraining limits were placed on a number of milestone events, including S190814bv, the first NSBH merger candidate identified in GW (Dobie et al 2019;Gomez et al 2019;LIGO Scientific Collaboration & Virgo Collaboration 2019;Ackley et al 2020;Andreoni et al 2020;Vieira et al 2020;Watson et al 2020), and several candidate BNS systems (Goldstein et al 2019;Hosseinzadeh et al 2019;Lundquist et al 2019), including the unusually massive GW190425 (Coughlin et al 2019;Hosseinzadeh et al 2019;Lundquist et al 2019;Abbott et al 2020b).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Gompertz

Cutter

Steeghs

et al. 2020

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

102

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Abstract 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.

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An ASKAP Search for a Radio Counterpart to the First High-significance Neutron Star–Black Hole Merger LIGO/Virgo S190814bv

Cited by 70 publications

References 38 publications

Observational constraints on the optical and near-infrared emission from the neutron star–black hole binary merger candidate S190814bv

Observational constraints on the optical and near-infrared emission from the neutron star–black hole binary merger candidate S190814bv

Swift-XRT follow-up of gravitational wave triggers during the third aLIGO/Virgo observing run

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

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