An early warning system for electromagnetic follow-up of gravitational-wave events

• Published in: arXiv.org 2020-09
• Main Authors: Sachdev, Surabhi, Magee, Ryan, Hanna, Chad, Cannon, Kipp, Singer, Leo, Javed Rana SK, Mukherjee, Debnandini, Caudill, Sarah, Chan, Chiwai, Creighton, Jolien D E, Ewing, Becca, Fong, Heather, Godwin, Patrick, Huxford, Rachael, Kapadia, Shasvath, Li, Alvin K Y, Rico Ka Lok Lo, Meacher, Duncan, Messick, Cody, Mohite, Siddharth R, Nishizawa, Atsushi, Ohta, Hiroaki, Pace, Alexander, Reza, Amit, Sathyaprakash, B S, Shikauchi, Minori, Singh, Divya, Tsukada, Leo, Tsuna, Daichi, Tsutsui, Takuya, Ueno, Koh
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Binary stars; Detectors; Early warning systems; Gravitation; Gravitational waves; Neutron stars; Red shift; Sensitivity; Signal to noise ratio; Telescopes
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2008.04288

Binary neutron stars (BNSs) will spend \(\simeq 10\) -- 15 minutes in the band of Advanced LIGO and Virgo detectors at design sensitivity. Matched-filtering of gravitational-wave (GW) data could in principle accumulate enough signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) to identify a forthcoming event tens of seconds before the companions collide and merge. Here we report on the design and testing of an early warning gravitational-wave detection pipeline. Early warning alerts can be produced for sources that are at low enough redshift so that a large enough SNR accumulates \(\sim 10 - 60\,\rm s\) before merger. We find that about 7% (respectively, 49%) of the total detectable BNS mergers will be detected \(60\, \rm s\) (\(10\, \rm s\)) before the merger. About 2% of the total detectable BNS mergers will be detected before merger and localized to within \(100\, \rm \text{deg}^2\) (90% credible interval). Coordinated observing by several wide-field telescopes could capture the event seconds before or after the merger. LIGO-Virgo detectors at design sensitivity could facilitate observing at least one event at the onset of merger.