| Title: |
SkyMapper Optical Follow-up of Gravitational Wave Triggers: Alert Science Data Pipeline and LIGO/Virgo O3 Run |
| Authors: |
Chang, Seo-Won, Onken, Christopher A., Wolf, Christian, Luvaul, Lance, Möller, Anais, Scalzo, Richard, Schmidt, Brian P., Scott, Susan M., Sura, Nikunj, Yuan, Fang |
| Publication Year: |
2021 |
| Collection: |
Astrophysics |
| Subject Terms: |
Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics |
| More Details: |
We present an overview of the SkyMapper optical follow-up program for gravitational-wave event triggers from the LIGO/Virgo observatories, which aims at identifying early GW170817-like kilonovae out to $\sim 200$ Mpc distance. We describe our robotic facility for rapid transient follow-up, which can target most of the sky at $\delta<+10\deg $ to a depth of $i_\mathrm{AB}\approx 20$ mag. We have implemented a new software pipeline to receive LIGO/Virgo alerts, schedule observations and examine the incoming real-time data stream for transient candidates. We adopt a real-bogus classifier using ensemble-based machine learning techniques, attaining high completeness ($\sim$98%) and purity ($\sim$91%) over our whole magnitude range. Applying further filtering to remove common image artefacts and known sources of transients, such as asteroids and variable stars, reduces the number of candidates by a factor of more than 10. We demonstrate the system performance with data obtained for GW190425, a binary neutron star merger detected during the LIGO/Virgo O3 observing campaign. In time for the LIGO/Virgo O4 run, we will have deeper reference images allowing transient detection to $i_\mathrm{AB}\approx $21 mag.
Comment: 13 pages, 6 figures, Accepted for publication in PASA |
| Document Type: |
Working Paper |
| DOI: |
10.1017/pasa.2021.17 |
| Access URL: |
http://arxiv.org/abs/2102.07353 |
| Accession Number: |
edsarx.2102.07353 |
| Database: |
arXiv |
