The first six months of the Advanced LIGO's and Advanced Virgo's third observing run with GRANDMA. Issue 3 (11th November 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Antier, S; Agayeva, S; Aivazyan, V; Alishov, S; Arbouch, E; Baransky, A; Barynova, K; Bai, J M; Basa, S; Beradze, S; Bertin, E; Berthier, J; Blažek, M; Boër, M; Burkhonov, O; Burrell, A; Cailleau, A; Chabert, B; Chen, J C; Christensen, N; Coleiro, A; Cordier, B; Corre, D; Coughlin, M W; Coward, D; Crisp, H; Delattre, C; Dietrich, T; Ducoin, J-G; Duverne, P-A; Marchal-Duval, G; Gendre, B; Eymar, L; Fock-Hang, P; Han, X; Hello, P; Howell, E J; Inasaridze, R; Ismailov, N; Kann, D A; Kapanadze, G; Klotz, A; Kochiashvili, N; Lachaud, C; Leroy, N; Le Van Su, A; Lin, W L; Li, W X; Lognone, P; Marron, R; Mo, J; Moore, J; Natsvlishvili, R; Noysena, K; Perrigault, S; Peyrot, A; Samadov, D; Sadibekova, T; Simon, A; Stachie, C; Teng, J P; Thierry, P; Thöne, C C; Tillayev, Y; Turpin, D; de Ugarte Postigo, A; Vachier, F; Vardosanidze, M; Vasylenko, V; Vidadi, Z; Wang, X F; Wang, C J; Wei, J; Yan, S Y; Zhang, J C; Zhang, J J; Zhang, X H;
• Is Part Of: Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Volume 492:Issue 3(2020)
• Page Start: 3904
• Page End: 3927
• Publication Date: 2019-11-11
• Subjects: gravitational waves -- methods: observational -- stars: neutron; Astronomy -- Periodicals; Periodicals; 520.5
• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stz3142
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0035-8711

Abstract

ABSTRACT: We present the Global Rapid Advanced Network Devoted to the Multi-messenger Addicts (GRANDMA). The network consists of 21 telescopes with both photometric and spectroscopic facilities. They are connected together thanks to a dedicated infrastructure. The network aims at coordinating the observations of large sky position estimates of transient events to enhance their follow-up and reduce the delay between the initial detection and optical confirmation. The GRANDMA programme mainly focuses on follow-up of gravitational-wave alerts to find and characterize the electromagnetic counterpart during the third observational campaign of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. But it allows for follow-up of any transient alerts involving neutrinos or gamma-ray bursts, even those with poor spatial localization. We present the different facilities, tools, and methods we developed for this network and show its efficiency using observations of LIGO/Virgo S190425z, a binary neutron star merger candidate. We furthermore report on all GRANDMA follow-up observations performed during the first six months of the LIGO–Virgo observational campaign, and we derive constraints on the kilonova properties assuming that the events' locations were imaged by our telescopes.