1. The Gravity Collective: A Search for the Electromagnetic Counterpart to the Neutron Star–Black Hole Merger GW190814
- Author
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Charles D. Kilpatrick, David A. Coulter, Iair Arcavi, Thomas G. Brink, Georgios Dimitriadis, Alexei V. Filippenko, Ryan J. Foley, D. Andrew Howell, David O. Jones, Daniel Kasen, Martin Makler, Anthony L. Piro, César Rojas-Bravo, David J. Sand, Jonathan J. Swift, Douglas Tucker, WeiKang Zheng, Sahar S. Allam, James T. Annis, Juanita Antilen, Tristan G. Bachmann, Joshua S. Bloom, Clecio R. Bom, K. Azalee Bostroem, Dillon Brout, Jamison Burke, Robert E. Butler, Melissa Butner, Abdo Campillay, Karoli E. Clever, Christopher J. Conselice, Jeff Cooke, Kristen C. Dage, Reinaldo R. de Carvalho, Thomas de Jaeger, Shantanu Desai, Alyssa Garcia, Juan Garcia-Bellido, Mandeep S. S. Gill, Nachiket Girish, Na’ama Hallakoun, Kenneth Herner, Daichi Hiramatsu, Daniel E. Holz, Grace Huber, Adam M. Kawash, Curtis McCully, Sophia A. Medallon, Brian D. Metzger, Shaunak Modak, Robert Morgan, Ricardo R. Muñoz, Nahir Muñoz-Elgueta, Yukei S. Murakami, Felipe Olivares E., Antonella Palmese, Kishore C. Patra, Maria E. S. Pereira, Thallis L. Pessi, J. Pineda-Garcia, Jonathan Quirola-Vásquez, Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz, Sandro Barboza Rembold, Armin Rest, Ósmar Rodríguez, Luidhy Santana-Silva, Nora F. Sherman, Matthew R. Siebert, Carli Smith, J. Allyn Smith, Marcelle Soares-Santos, Holland Stacey, Benjamin E. Stahl, Jay Strader, Erika Strasburger, James Sunseri, Samaporn Tinyanont, Brad E. Tucker, Natalie Ulloa, Stefano Valenti, Sergiy S. Vasylyev, Matthew P. Wiesner, and Keto D. Zhang
- Subjects
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) ,Space and Planetary Science ,Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,FOS: Physical sciences ,Astronomy and Astrophysics ,Astrophysics::Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics ,Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,Astrophysics::Galaxy Astrophysics - Abstract
We present optical follow-up imaging obtained with the Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope, Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network, Nickel Telescope, Swope Telescope, and Thacher Telescope of the LIGO/Virgo gravitational wave (GW) signal from the neutron star-black hole (NSBH) merger GW190814. We searched the GW190814 localization region (19 deg$^{2}$ for the 90th percentile best localization), covering a total of 51 deg$^{2}$ and 94.6% of the two-dimensional localization region. Analyzing the properties of 189 transients that we consider as candidate counterparts to the NSBH merger, including their localizations, discovery times from merger, optical spectra, likely host-galaxy redshifts, and photometric evolution, we conclude that none of these objects are likely to be associated with GW190814. Based on this finding, we consider the likely optical properties of an electromagnetic counterpart to GW190814, including possible kilonovae and short gamma-ray burst afterglows. Using the joint limits from our follow-up imaging, we conclude that a counterpart with an $r$-band decline rate of 0.68 mag day$^{-1}$, similar to the kilonova AT 2017gfo, could peak at an absolute magnitude of at most $-17.8$ mag (50% confidence). Our data are not constraining for ''red'' kilonovae and rule out ''blue'' kilonovae with $M>0.5 M_{\odot}$ (30% confidence). We strongly rule out all known types of short gamma-ray burst afterglows with viewing angles $, Comment: 86 pages, 9 figures
- Published
- 2021
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