Prospects for Observing and Localizing Gravitational-wave Transients with Advanced LIGO, Advanced VIrgo and KAGRA

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-2018

Keywords

Gravitational waves, Gravitational-wave detectors, Electromagnetic counterparts, Data analysis

Abstract

We present possible observing scenarios for the Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA gravitational-wave detectors over the next decade, with the intention of providing information to the astronomy community to facilitate planning for multi-messenger astronomy with gravitational waves. We estimate the sensitivity of the network to transient gravitational-wave signals, and study the capability of the network to determine the sky location of the source. We report our findings for gravitational-wave transients, with particular focus on gravitational-wave signals from the inspiral of binary neutron star systems, which are the most promising targets for multi-messenger astronomy. The ability to localize the sources of the detected signals depends on the geographical distribution of the detectors and their relative sensitivity, and 90%" role="presentation">90% credible regions can be as large as thousands of square degrees when only two sensitive detectors are operational. Determining the sky position of a significant fraction of detected signals to areas of 5–20 deg2" role="presentation">20 deg2 requires at least three detectors of sensitivity within a factor of ∼2" role="presentation">∼2 of each other and with a broad frequency bandwidth. When all detectors, including KAGRA and the third LIGO detector in India, reach design sensitivity, a significant fraction of gravitational-wave signals will be localized to a few square degrees by gravitational-wave observations alone.

Comments

Version 8

Journal Title

Living Reviews in Relativity

Volume

21

Issue

3

DOI

10.1007/s41114-018-0012-9

First Department

Physics

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