Optimizing gravitational waves follow-up using galaxies stellar mass

Abstract

We present a new strategy to optimise the electromagnetic follow-up of gravitational wave triggers. This method is based on the widely used galaxy targeting approach where we add the stellar mass of galaxies in order to prioritise the more massive galaxies. We crossmatched the GLADE galaxy catalog with the AllWISE catalog up to 400Mpc with an efficiency of ∼93%, and derived stellar masses using a stellar-to-mass ratio using the WISE1 band luminosity. We developed a new grade to rank galaxies combining their 3D localisation probability associated to the gravitational wave event with the new stellar mass information. The efficiency of this new approach is illustrated with the GW170817 event, which shows that its host galaxy, NGC4993, is ranked at the first place using this new method. The catalog, named Mangrove, is publicly available and the ranking of galaxies is automatically provided through a dedicated web site for each gravitational wave event.

Cosmographic model of the astroparticle skies

“…We have checked the distance of each galaxy against those tabulated in the HyperLEDA database [15], which provides cosmic-ladder estimates for about 4,000 nearby galaxies that are not in the Hubble flow, spectroscopic estimates for about half of the sample and 2MPZ photometric estimates for the other half. The crossmatch with HyperLEDA improves the number of spectroscopic estimates by a factor of four with respect to catalogs established by the GW community [10,11]. The sample is compatible with being flux limited at high Galactic latitudes but a deficit of galaxies is observed in the ZoA.…”

“…to constrain the contributions of AGNs, star-forming galaxies and dark matter to the extragalactic -ray background [9]. The 2MPZ catalog was recently complemented by the GW community [10,11] to foster galaxy-targeting approaches, which enable swift follow-up observations of binary neutron-star mergers, and to pave the way to accurate statistical constraints on the Hubble constant, assuming that binary black-hole mergers are traced by the * distribution [12].…”

The H.E.S.S. gravitational wave rapid follow-up program

“…Improvements to the H.E.S.S. GW follow-up program include the possible use of galaxy stellar masses provided in catalogs like MANGROVE [56]. This option was already available in the offline tools used by the H.E.S.S.…”

The Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO): prototype performance and prospects for transient science

“…The use of alternative strategies, such as targeting individual galaxies within the region, which themselves can number in the hundreds to thousands also brings additional challenges (e.g. Ducoin et al 2020;Gehrels et al 2016). For example, the GLADE catalog (Dálya et al 2018) is complete only up to 𝐷 𝐿 ∼ 37 Mpc and uses luminosity as a tracer for the mass and merger rate of BNS sources.…”