Limits on the electromagnetic counterpart to S190814bv. Issue 4 (20th January 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Watson, A M; Butler, N R; Lee, W H; Becerra, R L; Pereyra, M; Angeles, F; Farah, A; Figueroa, L; Gónzalez-Buitrago, D; Quirós, F; Ruíz-Díaz-Soto, J; Tejada de Vargas, C; Tinoco, S J; Wolfram, T
• Is Part Of: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Volume 492:Issue 4(2020)
• Page Start: 5916
• Page End: 5921
• Publication Date: 2020-01-20
• Subjects: gravitational waves -- binaries: close -- stars: black holes -- gamma-ray burst: general -- stars: neutron; Astronomy -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 520.5
• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staa161
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0035-8711

Abstract

ABSTRACT: We derive limits on any electromagnetic counterpart to the compact binary merger S190814bv, whose parameters are consistent with the merger of a black hole and a neutron star. We present observations with the new wide-field optical imager DDOTI and also consider Swift /BAT observations reported by Palmer et al. We show that Swift /BAT would have detected a counterpart with similar properties to a typical on-axis short GRB at the 98 per cent confidence level, whereas our DDOTI observations only rule out such a counterpart at the 27 per cent confidence level. Neither has sufficient sensitivity to rule out an off-axis counterpart like GW 170817. We compare the efficiency of Swift /BAT and DDOTI for future observations, and show that DDOTI is likely to be about twice as efficient as Swift /BAT for off-axis events up to about 100 Mpc.