Using Galaxy Formation Simulations to optimise LIGO Follow-Up Observations

TL;DR

This paper presents a method using galaxy formation simulations and galaxy data to optimize electromagnetic follow-up observations of gravitational-wave events, significantly reducing search areas.

Contribution

It introduces a novel technique combining galaxy data and simulations to prioritize likely host galaxies, improving follow-up efficiency.

Findings

Potential to halve the search area compared to unweighted searches.

Reduces the search area by a factor of twenty over the entire LIGO localization region.

Demonstrates effective integration of galaxy data and simulations for follow-up optimization.

Abstract

The recent discovery of gravitational radiation from merging black holes poses a challenge of how to organize the electromagnetic follow-up of gravitational-wave events as well as observed bursts of neutrinos. We propose a technique to select the galaxies that are most likely to host the event given some assumptions of whether the particular event is associated with recent star formation, low metallicity stars or simply proportional to the total stellar mass in the galaxy. We combine data from the 2-MASS Photometric Redshift Galaxy Catalogue with results from galaxy formation simulations to develop observing strategies that potentially reduce the area of sky to search by up to a factor of two relative to an unweighted search of galaxies, and a factor twenty to a search over the entire LIGO localization region.