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Kasliwal, MM, Cenko, SB, Singer, LP, Corsi, A, Cao, Y, Barlow, T, Bhalerao, V, Bellm, E, Cook, D, Duggan, GE, Ferretti, R, Frail, DA, Horesh, A, Kendrick, R, Kulkarni, SR, Lunnan, R, Palliyaguru, N, Laher, R, Masci, F, Manulis, I , Miller, AA, Nugent, PE, Perley, DA, Prince, TA, Quimby, RM, Rana, J, Rebbapragada, U, Sesar, B, Singhal, A, Surace, J and Sistine, AV (2016) IPTF Search for An Optical Counterpart to Gravitational-Wave TransientT GW150914. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 824 (2). ISSN 2041-8205
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Abstract
The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..The intermediate Palomar Transient Factory (iPTF) autonomously responded to and promptly tiled the error region of the first gravitational-wave event GW150914 to search for an optical counterpart. Only a small fraction of the total localized region was immediately visible in the northern night sky, due both to Sun-angle and elevation constraints. Here, we report on the transient candidates identified and rapid follow-up undertaken to determine the nature of each candidate. Even in the small area imaged of 126 deg2, after extensive filtering, eight candidates were deemed worthy of additional follow-up. Within two hours, all eight were spectroscopically classified by the Keck II telescope. Curiously, even though such events are rare, one of our candidates was a superluminous supernova. We obtained radio data with the Jansky Very Large Array and X-ray follow-up with the Swift satellite for this transient. None of our candidates appear to be associated with the gravitational-wave trigger, which is unsurprising given that GW150914 came from the merger of two stellar-mass black holes. This end-to-end discovery and follow-up campaign bodes well for future searches in this post-detection era of gravitational waves.
| Item Type: | Article |
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| Uncontrolled Keywords: | 0201 Astronomical And Space Sciences |
| Subjects: | Q Science > QB Astronomy Q Science > QC Physics |
| Divisions: | Astrophysics Research Institute |
| Publisher: | American Astronomical Society |
| Date Deposited: | 17 Feb 2017 12:12 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2022 14:28 |
| DOI or ID number: | 10.3847/2041-8205/824/2/L24 |
| URI: | https://researchonline.ljmu.ac.uk/id/eprint/5584 |
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