Setzer, CN;
Biswas, R;
Peiris, HV;
Rosswog, S;
Korobkin, O;
Wollaeger, RT;
(2019)
Serendipitous discoveries of kilonovae in the LSST main survey: maximizing detections of sub-threshold gravitational wave events.
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
, 485
(3)
pp. 4260-4273.
10.1093/mnras/stz506.
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Abstract
We investigate the ability of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) to discover kilonovae (kNe) from binary neutron star (BNS) and neutron star–black hole (NSBH) mergers, focusing on serendipitous detections in the Wide-Fast-Deep (WFD) survey. We simulate observations of kNe with proposed LSST survey strategies, focusing on cadence choices that are compatible with the broader LSST cosmology programme. If all kNe are identical to GW170817, we find the baseline survey strategy will yield 58 kNe over the survey lifetime. If we instead assume a representative population model of BNS kNe, we expect to detect only 27 kNe. However, we find the choice of survey strategy significantly impacts these numbers and can increase them to 254 and 82 kNe over the survey lifetime, respectively. This improvement arises from an increased cadence of observations between different filters with respect to the baseline. We then consider the detectability of these BNS mergers by the Advanced LIGO/Virgo (ALV) detector network. If the optimal survey strategy is adopted, 202 of the GW170817-like kNe and 56 of the BNS population model kNe are detected with LSST but are below the threshold for detection by the ALV network. This represents, for both models, an increase by a factor greater than 4.5 in the number of detected sub-threshold events over the baseline strategy. These sub-threshold events would provide an opportunity to conduct electromagnetic-triggered searches for signals in gravitational-wave data and assess selection effects in measurements of the Hubble constant from standard sirens, e.g. viewing angle effects.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Serendipitous discoveries of kilonovae in the LSST main survey: maximizing detections of sub-threshold gravitational wave events |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1093/mnras/stz506 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz506 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| Keywords: | gravitational waves, surveys, binaries: general, stars: neutron, stars: black holes, cosmology: observations |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10077369 |
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