A Search for Optical Emission from Binary-Black-Hole Merger GW170814 with the Dark Energy Camera

Abstract

Binary black hole (BBH) mergers found by the LIGO and Virgo detectors are of immense scientific interest to the astrophysics community, but are considered unlikely to be sources of electromagnetic emission. To test whether they have rapidly fading optical counterparts, we used the Dark Energy Camera to perform an $i$-band search for the BBH merger GW170814, the first gravitational wave detected by three interferometers. The 87-deg${}^2$ localization region (at 90\% confidence) centered in the Dark Energy Survey (DES) footprint enabled us to image 86\% of the probable sky area to a depth of $i\sim 23$ mag and provide the most comprehensive dataset to search for EM emission from BBH mergers. To identify candidates, we perform difference imaging with our search images and with templates from pre-existing DES images. The analysis strategy and selection requirements were designed to remove supernovae and to identify transients that decline in the first two epochs. We find two candidates, each of which is spatially coincident with a star or a high-redshift galaxy in the DES catalogs, and they are thus unlikely to be associated with GW170814. Our search finds no candidates associated with GW170814, disfavoring rapidly declining optical emission from BBH mergers brighter than $i\sim 23$ mag ($L_{\mathrm{optical}}\sim 5\times 10^{41}$ erg/s) 1-2 days after coalescence. In terms of GW sky map coverage, this is the most complete search for optical counterparts to BBH mergers to date

arXiv comment11 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (45)

• Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger
• Planck 2015 results. XIII. Cosmological parameters
• GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
• GW151226: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a 22-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence
• GW170104: Observation of a 50-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence at Redshift 0.2
• GW170814: A Three-Detector Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Coalescence
• GW170608: Observation of a 19-solar-mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence
• Swope Supernova Survey 2017a (SSS17a), the Optical Counterpart to a Gravitational Wave Source
• Binary Black Hole Mergers in the first Advanced LIGO Observing Run
• The Dark Energy Camera
• Astrophysical Implications of the Binary Black-Hole Merger GW150914
• The Electromagnetic Counterpart of the Binary Neutron Star Merger LIGO/Virgo GW170817. I. Dark Energy Camera Discovery of the Optical Counterpart
• The Supernova Legacy Survey 3-year sample: Type Ia Supernovae photometric distances and cosmological constraints
• Assisted Inspirals of Stellar Mass Black Holes Embedded in AGN Disks: Solving the "Final AU Problem"
• The discovery of the electromagnetic counterpart of GW170817: kilonova AT 2017gfo/DLT17ck
• The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: twelfth data release
• A 2 per cent Hubble constant measurement from standard sirens within 5 years
• Rapid Bayesian position reconstruction for gravitational-wave transients
• Fermi GBM Observations of LIGO Gravitational Wave event GW150914
• SNANA: A Public Software Package for Supernova Analysis
• On stellar-mass black hole mergers in AGN disks detectable with LIGO
• A standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant from GW170817 without the electromagnetic counterpart
• The Dark Energy Survey Image Processing Pipeline
• Electromagnetic Counterparts to Black Hole Mergers Detected by LIGO
• Short Gamma-Ray Bursts from the Merger of Two Black Holes
• The Difference Imaging Pipeline for the Transient Search in the Dark Energy Survey
• Results from the Supernova Photometric Classification Challenge
• Automated Transient Identification in the Dark Energy Survey
• The Progenitor of GW 150914
• DNF - Galaxy photometric redshift by Directional Neighbourhood Fitting
• Optical Follow-up of Gravitational-wave Events with Las Cumbres Observatory
• Host Galaxy Identification for Supernova Surveys
• Electromagnetic signals following stellar-mass black hole mergers
• A Dark Energy Camera Search for an Optical Counterpart to the First Advanced LIGO Gravitational Wave Event GW150914
• Pan-STARRS and PESSTO search for an optical counterpart to the LIGO gravitational wave source GW150914
• A Comprehensive Study of Detectability and Contamination in Deep Rapid Optical Searches for Gravitational Wave Counterparts
• A DECam Search for an Optical Counterpart to the LIGO Gravitational Wave Event GW151226
• Observations of the GRB afterglow ATLAS17aeu and its possible association with GW170104
• A search for an optical counterpart to the gravitational wave event GW151226
• First Gravitational-Wave Burst GW150914: Part II. MASTER Optical Follow-Up Observations
• Instrumental response model and detrending for the Dark Energy Camera
• Star-galaxy classification in the Dark Energy Survey Y1 dataset
• A Single Progenitor Model for GW150914 and GW170104
• J-GEM Follow-Up Observations to Search for an Optical Counterpart of The First Gravitational Wave Source GW150914
• J-GEM Follow-Up Observations of The Gravitational Wave Source GW151226

Cited by in corpus (12)

• A statistical standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant from the LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave compact object merger GW190814 and Dark Energy Survey galaxies
• GROWTH on S190426c. II. Real-Time Search for a Counterpart to the Probable Neutron Star-Black Hole Merger using an Automated Difference Imaging Pipeline for DECam
• Constraints on the Physical Properties of GW190814 through Simulations based on DECam Follow-up Observations by the Dark Energy Survey
• GROWTH on S190510g: DECam Observation Planning and Follow-Up of a Distant Binary Neutron Star Merger Candidate
• Deep and rapid observations of strong-lensing galaxy clusters within the sky localisation of GW170814
• Optical follow-up of gravitational wave events during the second advanced LIGO/VIRGO observing run with the DLT40 Survey
• Optical follow-up of gravitational wave triggers with DECam during the first two LIGO/VIRGO observing runs
• Swift sky localization of gravitational waves using deep learning seeded importance sampling
• GECKO Optical Follow-up Observation of Three Binary Black Hole Merger Events: GW190408_181802, GW190412, and GW190503_185404
• Search for the optical counterpart of the GW170814 gravitationalwave event with the VLT Survey Telescope
• Searching for Gravitational-Wave Counterparts using the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite
• Limits on the Electro-Magnetic Counterpart of Binary Black Hole Coalescence at Visible Wavelengths