Coincidence searches of gravitational waves and short gamma-ray bursts

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new method for analyzing gravitational wave data to identify signals from black-hole-neutron-star mergers likely to produce short gamma-ray bursts, aiding in rapid detection and understanding of these events.

Contribution

A novel procedure combining semi-analytic fits to estimate disk mass and neutron star properties to improve gravitational wave searches related to gamma-ray bursts.

Findings

Method enables low-latency analysis of gravitational wave data.

Improves identification of mergers likely to produce gamma-ray bursts.

Provides insights into neutron star equation of state.

Abstract

Black-hole neutron-star coalescing binaries have been invoked as one of the most suitable scenario to explain the emission of short gamma-ray bursts. Indeed, if the black-hole which forms after the merger, is surrounded by a massive disk, neutrino annihilation processes may produce high-energy and collimated electromagnetic radiation. In this paper, we devise a new procedure, to be used in the search for gravitational waves from black-hole-neutron-star binaries, to assign a probability that a detected gravitational signal is associated to the formation of an accreting disk, massive enough to power gamma-ray bursts. This method is based on two recently proposed semi-analytic fits, one reproducing the mass of the remnant disk surrounding the black hole as a function of some binary parameters, the second relating the neutron star compactness, with its tidal deformability. Our approach can be used in low-latency data analysis to restrict the parameter space searching for gravitational signals associated with short gamma-ray bursts, and to gain information on the dynamics of the coalescing system and on the neutron star equation of state.