Searching for compact binary mergers with gravitational waves and gamma rays: Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and Fermi/GBM

by Tito Dal Canton (NAGA Goddard)

Monday 22 Oct 2018, 11:00 → 13:00 Europe/Rome

Ex-ISEF/Building-Library (GSSI)

GW170817 demonstrated that compact binary mergers involving neutron
stars can be observed and studied through their gravitational-wave and
gamma-ray emission, enabling a variety of tests which range from nuclear
theory to fundamental physics. Similar events from future observations,
however, will likely be more distant than GW170817, suggesting that the
corresponding gravitational-wave and gamma-ray signals might be weaker
and harder to detect. This prospect calls for methods to jointly analyze
weak gravitational-wave and gamma-ray candidates. A search for such weak
associations has been carried out using candidates from Advanced LIGO's
first observing run and data from the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor on the
Fermi satellite. I will describe the methods and results of this search,
and the development currently ongoing towards the next joint analyses.