O'Neill, D.S., Lyman, J.D., Ackley, K. et al. (19 more authors) (2024) GERry: a code to optimise the hunt for the electromagnetic counter-parts to gravitational wave events. In: Benn, C.R., Chrysostomou, A. and Storrie-Lombardi, L.J., (eds.) Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems X. SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2024, 16-22 Jun 2024, Yokohama, Japan. SPIE , p. 46.
Abstract
The search for the electromagnetic counterparts to Gravitational Wave (GW) events has been rapidly gathering pace in recent years thanks to the increasing number and capabilities of both gravitational wave detectors and wide field survey telescopes. Difficulties remain, however, in detecting these counterparts due to their inherent scarcity, faintness and rapidly evolving nature. To find these counterparts, it is important that one optimizes the observing strategy for their recovery. This can be difficult due to the large number of potential variables at play. Such follow-up campaigns are also capable of detecting hundreds or potentially thousands of unrelated transients, particularly for GW events with poor localization. Even if the observations are capable of detecting a counterpart, finding it among the numerous contaminants can prove challenging. Here we present the Gravitational wave Electromagnetic RecovRY code (GERRY) to perform detailed analysis and survey-agnostic quantification of observing campaigns attempting to recover electromagnetic counterparts. GERRY considers the campaign’s spatial, temporal and wavelength coverage, in addition to Galactic extinction and the expected counterpart light curve evolution from the GW 3D localization volume. It returns quantified statistics that can be used to: determine the probability of having detected the counterpart, identified the most promising sources, and assessed and refine strategy. Here we demonstrate the code to look at the performance and parameter space probed by current and upcoming wide-field surveys such as GOTO and VRO.
Metadata
Item Type: | Proceedings Paper |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2024 The author(s). Except as otherwise noted, this author-accepted version of a paper published in Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems X proceedings is made available via the University of Sheffield Research Publications and Copyright Policy under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |
Keywords: | Sensors; Tunable filters; ;Observatories; Electromagnetism; Image processing; Telescopes; Image restoration; LIGO; Observational astronomy; Physics |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > Department of Physics and Astronomy (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 28 Aug 2024 14:47 |
Last Modified: | 28 Aug 2024 15:06 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | SPIE |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1117/12.3018319 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:216510 |