Paper 13098-46
Paper 13098-46
GERry: a code to assess and optimise the hunt for the electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational waves
20 June 2024 • 10:30 - 10:50 Japan Standard Time | Room G316, North - 3F
Abstract
Recent years have seen an increasing number and capabilities of both gravitational wave detectors as well as wide field survey telescopes, providing us with new opportunities to find the electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational wave events. However, due to their inherently scarcity, faintness and rapidly evolving nature, this can be difficult. Optimising the observing strategy and finding any detected counterpart among potentially thousands of unrelated transients is paramount to finding and identifying the counterpart as quickly as possible. In this talk I will present GERry, a code that performs a detailed analysis of a follow-up campaign. GERry considers almost every aspect of a follow-up campaign and can be used to: determine the probability of detecting the counterpart, identify the most promising sources as well as assess and refine strategy performance. I will also talk about the potential performance and parameter space probed by current and upcoming telescope facilities such as GOTO, BlackGEM and VRO/LSST in LIGO observing runs O3 to O5.
Presenter
David S. O'Neill
The Univ. of Warwick (United Kingdom)
I am a post-doc working at the University of Warwick with an interest in time domain astronomy, in particular the origins of the diversity observed in hydrogen rich core-collapse supernovae and their progenitor stars. I am also a member of the GOTO (Gravitational wave Optical Transient Observatory) collaboration. GOTO is a set of wide field telescopes in the northern and southern hemispheres specifically designed to detect the optical counterparts of gravitational wave events. In GOTO, I am a programmer, helping to develop and maintain the data interface from which members of the collaboration can identify and report transients. I also have developed software which can be used to rapidly analyse gravitational wave follow-up campaigns so that we can quickly adapt and refine our observing strategies to detect and identify the most promising electromagnetic counterpart candidates.