A DECAM SEARCH FOR AN OPTICAL COUNTERPART TO THE LIGO GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE EVENT GW151226
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Author
Cowperthwaite, P. S.
Berger, E.

Soares-Santos, M.

Annis, J.

Brout, D.
Brown, D. A.

Buckley-Geer, E.
Cenko, S. B.

Chen, H. Y.

Chornock, R.
Diehl, H. T.
Doctor, Z.
Drlica-Wagner, A.
Drout, M. R.
Farr, B.
Finley, D. A.
Foley, R. J.
Fong, W.
Fox, D. B.
Frieman, J.
Garcia-Bellido, J.
Gill, M. S. S.
Gruendl, R. A.

Herner, K.
Holz, D. E.
Kasen, D.
Kessler, R.

Lin, H.
Margutti, R.
Marriner, J.
Matheson, T.
Metzger, B. D.
Neilsen Jr., E. H.
Quataert, E.
Rest, A.
Sako, M.
Scolnic, D.
Smith, N.
Sobreira, F.
Strampelli, G. M.
Villar, V. A.
Walker, A. R.
Wester, W.
Williams, P. K. G.
Yanny, B.
Abbott, T. M. C.
Abdalla, F. B.
Allam, S.
Armstrong, R.
Bechtol, K.
Benoit-Lévy, A.
Bertin, E.
Brooks, D.
Burke, D. L.
Rosell, A. Carnero
Kind, M. Carrasco
Carretero, J.
Castander, F. J.
Cunha, C. E.
D’Andrea, C. B.
Costa, L. N. da
Desai, S.
Dietrich, J. P.

Evrard, A. E.
Neto, A. Fausti
Fosalba, P.
Gerdes, D. W.
Giannantonio, T.
Goldstein, D. A.
Gruen, D.
Gutierrez, G.
Honscheid, K.
James, D. J.
Johnson, M. W. G.
Johnson, M. D.
Krause, E.
Kuehn, K.
Kuropatkin, N.
Lima, M.
Maia, M. A. G.
Marshall, J. L.
Menanteau, F.
Miquel, R.
Mohr, J. J.
Nichol, R. C.
Nord, B.

Ogando, R.
Plazas, A. A.
Reil, K.
Romer, A. K.
Sanchez, E.
Scarpine, V.
Sevilla-Noarbe, I.
Smith, R. C.
Suchyta, E.
Tarle, G.
Thomas, D.
Thomas, R. C.
Tucker, D. L.
Weller, J.
Affiliation
Univ Arizona, Steward ObservIssue Date
2016-07-29
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IOP PUBLISHING LTDCitation
A DECAM SEARCH FOR AN OPTICAL COUNTERPART TO THE LIGO GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE EVENT GW151226 2016, 826 (2):L29 The Astrophysical JournalJournal
The Astrophysical JournalRights
© 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.Collection Information
This item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at repository@u.library.arizona.edu.Abstract
We report the results of a Dark Energy Camera optical follow-up of the gravitational-wave (GW) event GW151226, discovered by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory detectors. Our observations cover 28.8 deg(2) of the localization region in the i and z bands (containing 3% of the BAYESTAR localization probability), starting 10 hr after the event was announced and spanning four epochs at 2-24 days after the GW detection. We achieve 5 sigma point-source limiting magnitudes of i approximate to 21.7 and z approximate to 21.5, with a scatter of 0.4 mag, in our difference images. Given the two-day delay, we search this area for a rapidly declining optical counterpart with greater than or similar to 3 sigma significance steady decline between the first and final observations. We recover four sources that pass our selection criteria, of which three are cataloged active galactic nuclei. The fourth source is offset by 5.8 arcsec from the center of a galaxy at a distance of 187 Mpc, exhibits a rapid decline by 0.5 mag over 4 days, and has a red color of i - z approximate to 0.3 mag. These properties could satisfy a set of cuts designed to identify kilonovae. However, this source was detected several times, starting 94 days prior to GW151226, in the Pan-STARRS Survey for Transients (dubbed as PS15cdi) and is therefore unrelated to the GW event. Given its long-term behavior, PS15cdi is likely a Type IIP supernova that transitioned out of its plateau phase during our observations, mimicking a kilonova-like behavior. We comment on the implications of this detection for contamination in future optical follow-up observations.ISSN
2041-8213Version
Final published versionSponsors
NSF through the Graduate Research Fellowship Program [DGE1144152]; NSF [AST-1518052, AST-1138766]; Alfred P. Sloan Foundation; NSF CAREER [PHY-1151836]; Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago through NSF [PHY-1125897]; FAS Division of Science, Research Computing Group at Harvard University; National Aeronautics and Space Administration; DOE; NSF (USA); MEC/MICINN/MINECO (Spain); STFC (UK); HEFCE (UK); MINECO [AYA2012-39559, ESP2013-48274, FPA2013-47986]; Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa [SEV-2012-0234]; ERC under the EU's 7th Framework Programme [ERC 240672, 291329, 306478]Additional Links
http://stacks.iop.org/2041-8205/826/i=2/a=L29?key=crossref.b1421e0dd349cd03be6011f729ee1e56ae974a485f413a2113503eed53cd6c53
10.3847/2041-8205/826/2/L29