학술논문
Designing an Optimal Kilonova Search Using DECam for Gravitational-wave Events
Document Type
article
Author
C. R. Bom; J. Annis; A. Garcia; A. Palmese; N. Sherman; M. Soares-Santos; L. Santana-Silva; R. Morgan; K. Bechtol; T. Davis; H. T. Diehl; S. S. Allam; T. G. Bachmann; B. M. O. Fraga; J. García-Bellido; M. S. S. Gill; K. Herner; C. D. Kilpatrick; M. Makler; F. Olivares E.; M. E. S. Pereira; J. Pineda; A. Santos; D. L. Tucker; M. P. Wiesner; M. Aguena; O. Alves; D. Bacon; P. H. Bernardinelli; E. Bertin; S. Bocquet; D. Brooks; M. Carrasco Kind; J. Carretero; C. Conselice; M. Costanzi; L. N. da Costa; J. De Vicente; S. Desai; P. Doel; S. Everett; I. Ferrero; J. Frieman; M. Gatti; D. W. Gerdes; D. Gruen; R. A. Gruendl; G. Gutierrez; S. R. Hinton; D. L. Hollowood; K. Honscheid; D. J. James; K. Kuehn; N. Kuropatkin; P. Melchior; J. Mena-Fernández; F. Menanteau; A. Pieres; A. A. Plazas Malagón; M. Raveri; M. Rodriguez-Monroy; E. Sanchez; B. Santiago; I. Sevilla-Noarbe; M. Smith; E. Suchyta; M. E. C. Swanson; G. Tarle; C. To; N. Weaverdyck
Source
The Astrophysical Journal, Vol 960, Iss 2, p 122 (2024)
Subject
Language
English
ISSN
1538-4357
Abstract
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%.