First demonstration of early warning gravitational wave alerts

Abstract

Gravitational-wave observations became commonplace in Advanced LIGO-Virgo's recently concluded third observing run. 56 non-retracted candidates were identified and publicly announced in near real time. Gravitational waves from binary neutron star mergers, however, remain of special interest since they can be precursors to high-energy astrophysical phenomena like $\gamma$-ray bursts and kilonovae. While late-time electromagnetic emissions provide important information about the astrophysical processes within, the prompt emission along with gravitational waves uniquely reveals the extreme matter and gravity during - and in the seconds following - merger. Rapid communication of source location and properties from the gravitational-wave data is crucial to facilitate multi-messenger follow-up of such sources. This is especially enabled if the partner facilities are forewarned via an early-warning (pre-merger) alert. Here we describe the commissioning and performance of such a low-latency infrastructure within LIGO-Virgo. We present results from an end-to-end mock data challenge that detects binary neutron star mergers and alerts partner facilities before merger. We set expectations for these alerts in future observing runs.

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• Improved early-warning estimates of luminosity distance and orbital inclination of compact binary mergers using higher modes of gravitational radiation
• Semianalytical Approach for Sky Localization of Gravitational Waves
• Gravitational-wave searches in the era of Advanced LIGO and Virgo
• RADAR-Radio Afterglow Detection and AI-driven Response: A Federated Framework for Gravitational Wave Event Follow-Up
• Sky localization of gravitational waves from eccentric binaries
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• Early Warning From Eccentric Compact Binaries: Template Initialization And Sub-dominant Mode Effects