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Published December 20, 2020 | Version Submitted + Published
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Kilonova Luminosity Function Constraints Based on Zwicky Transient Facility Searches for 13 Neutron Star Merger Triggers during O3

Creators

  • 1. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 2. ROR icon University of Maryland, College Park
  • 3. ROR icon Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron DESY
  • 4. ROR icon Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
  • 5. ROR icon Stockholm University
  • 6. ROR icon University of Minnesota
  • 7. ROR icon Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
  • 8. ROR icon American University of Sharjah
  • 9. ROR icon University of Sydney
  • 10. ROR icon Astronomy and Space
  • 11. ROR icon Swinburne University of Technology
  • 12. ROR icon Liverpool John Moores University
  • 13. ROR icon University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee
  • 14. ROR icon University of Washington
  • 15. ROR icon Indian Institute of Astrophysics
  • 16. ROR icon Texas Tech University
  • 17. ROR icon University of Amsterdam
  • 18. ROR icon Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía
  • 19. ROR icon University of California, Berkeley
  • 20. ROR icon Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
  • 21. ROR icon South African Radio Astronomy Observatory
  • 22. ROR icon Astronomical Institute
  • 23. ROR icon University of Malaga
  • 24. ROR icon Weizmann Institute of Science
  • 25. ROR icon Montclair State University
  • 26. ROR icon Infrared Processing and Analysis Center
  • 27. ROR icon University of Granada
  • 28. ROR icon National Central University
  • 29. ROR icon National Tsing Hua University
  • 30. ROR icon Northwestern University
  • 31. ROR icon Adler Planetarium
  • 32. ROR icon University of Pittsburgh
  • 33. ROR icon University of Birmingham
  • 34. ROR icon Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences
  • 35. ROR icon National Institute for Astrophysics
  • 36. ROR icon Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology
  • 37. ROR icon Special Astrophysical Observatory
  • 38. ROR icon Nanjing University

Abstract

We present a systematic search for optical counterparts to 13 gravitational wave (GW) triggers involving at least one neutron star during LIGO/Virgo's third observing run (O3). We searched binary neutron star (BNS) and neutron star black hole (NSBH) merger localizations with the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and undertook follow-up with the Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen (GROWTH) collaboration. The GW triggers had a median localization area of 4480 deg², a median distance of 267 Mpc, and false-alarm rates ranging from 1.5 to 10⁻²⁵ yr⁻¹. The ZTF coverage in the g and r bands had a median enclosed probability of 39%, median depth of 20.8 mag, and median time lag between merger and the start of observations of 1.5 hr. The O3 follow-up by the GROWTH team comprised 340 UltraViolet/Optical/InfraRed (UVOIR) photometric points, 64 OIR spectra, and three radio images using 17 different telescopes. We find no promising kilonovae (radioactivity-powered counterparts), and we show how to convert the upper limits to constrain the underlying kilonova luminosity function. Initially, we assume that all GW triggers are bona fide astrophysical events regardless of false-alarm rate and that kilonovae accompanying BNS and NSBH mergers are drawn from a common population; later, we relax these assumptions. Assuming that all kilonovae are at least as luminous as the discovery magnitude of GW170817 (−16.1 mag), we calculate that our joint probability of detecting zero kilonovae is only 4.2%. If we assume that all kilonovae are brighter than −16.6 mag (the extrapolated peak magnitude of GW170817) and fade at a rate of 1 mag day⁻¹ (similar to GW170817), the joint probability of zero detections is 7%. If we separate the NSBH and BNS populations based on the online classifications, the joint probability of zero detections, assuming all kilonovae are brighter than −16.6 mag, is 9.7% for NSBH and 7.9% for BNS mergers. Moreover, no more than <57% (<89%) of putative kilonovae could be brighter than −16.6 mag assuming flat evolution (fading by 1 mag day⁻¹) at the 90% confidence level. If we further take into account the online terrestrial probability for each GW trigger, we find that no more than <68% of putative kilonovae could be brighter than −16.6 mag. Comparing to model grids, we find that some kilonovae must have M_(ej) < 0.03 M_⊙, X_(lan) > 10⁻⁴, or φ > 30° to be consistent with our limits. We look forward to searches in the fourth GW observing run; even 17 neutron star mergers with only 50% coverage to a depth of −16 mag would constrain the maximum fraction of bright kilonovae to <25%.

Additional Information

© 2020. The American Astronomical Society. Received 2020 June 19; revised 2020 October 19; accepted 2020 October 19; published 2020 December 22. This work was supported by the Global Relay of Observatories Watching Transients Happen (GROWTH) project, funded by the National Science Foundation under PIRE grant No. 1545949. GROWTH is a collaborative project among the California Institute of Technology (USA), University of Maryland College Park (USA), University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (USA), Texas Tech University (USA), San Diego State University (USA), University of Washington (USA), Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA), Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan), National Central University (Taiwan), Indian Institute of Astrophysics (India), Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (India), Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel), The Oskar Klein Centre at Stockholm University (Sweden), Humboldt University (Germany), Liverpool John Moores University (UK), and University of Sydney (Australia). Based on observations obtained with the Samuel Oschin Telescope 48 inch and the 60 inch telescope at the Palomar Observatory as part of the Zwicky Transient Facility project. The ZTF is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant No. AST-1440341 and a collaboration including Caltech, IPAC, the Weizmann Institute for Science, the Oskar Klein Center at Stockholm University, the University of Maryland, the University of Washington, Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron and Humboldt University, Los Alamos National Laboratories, the TANGO Consortium of Taiwan, the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories. Operations are conducted by COO, IPAC, and UW. The ZTF forced photometry service was funded under Heising-Simons Foundation grant No. 12540303 (PI: Graham). The SED Machine is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant No. 1106171. The GROWTH-India telescope is a 70 cm telescope with a 0.7° field of view, set up by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics and the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay with support from the Indo-US Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF) and the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) of the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India (https://sites.google.com/view/growthindia/). It is located at the Indian Astronomical Observatory (Hanle), operated by the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA). The GROWTH-India project is supported by SERB and administered by IUSSTF under grant No. IUSSTF/PIRE Program/GROWTH/2015-16. This research has made use of the VizieR catalog access tool, CDS, Strasbourg, France (doi: 10.26093/cds/vizier). The original description of the VizieR service was published in A&AS 143, 23. These results made use of the Lowell Discovery Telescope (LDT) at Lowell Observatory. Lowell is a private, nonprofit institution dedicated to astrophysical research and public appreciation of astronomy and operates the LDT in partnership with Boston University, the University of Maryland, the University of Toledo, Northern Arizona University, and Yale University. The Large Monolithic Imager was built by Lowell Observatory using funds provided by the National Science Foundation (AST-1005313). The upgrade of the DeVeny optical spectrograph has been funded by a generous grant from John and Ginger Giovale and a grant from the Mt. Cuba Astronomical Foundation. The KPED team thanks the National Science Foundation and the National Optical Astronomical Observatory for making the Kitt Peak 2.1 m telescope available. We thank the observatory staff at Kitt Peak for their efforts to assist Robo-AO KP operations. The KPED team thanks the National Science Foundation, the National Optical Astronomical Observatory, the Caltech Space Innovation Council, and the Murty family for support in the building and operation of KPED. In addition, they thank the CHIMERA project for use of the Electron Multiplying CCD (EMCCD). The Liverpool Telescope is operated on the island of La Palma by Liverpool John Moores University in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias with financial support from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. Some spectroscopic observations were obtained with the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). The Photometric Redshifts for the Legacy Surveys (PRLS) catalog used in this paper was produced thanks to funding from the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics, via grant DE-SC0007914. This publication has made use of data collected at Lulin Observatory, partly supported by MoST grant 108-2112-M-008-001. Based on observations made with the Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC), installed at the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias on the island of La Palma. M.M.K. acknowledges generous support from the David and Lucille Packard Foundation. M.W.C. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation with grant No. PHY-2010970. A.G. and J.S. acknowledge support from the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation and GREAT research environment grant 2016-06012, funded by the Swedish Research Council. Some of the work by D.A.P. was performed at the Aspen Center for Physics, which is supported by National Science Foundation grant PHY-1607611. D.A.P. was partially supported by a grant from the Simons Foundation. H.K. thanks the LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program, which is funded by LSSTC, NSF Cybertraining Grant 1829740, the Brinson Foundation, and the Moore Foundation; his participation in the program has benefited this work. This work has been supported by the Spanish Science Ministry Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa Program under grant SEV-2017-0709. A.J.C.T. acknowledges support from the Junta de Andalucía (Project P07-TIC-03094) and Spanish Ministry Projects AYA2012-39727-C03-01, AYA2015-71718R, and PID2019-109974RB-I00. V.A.F. was supported by grant RFBR 19-02-00432. I.A. acknowledges support by a Ramón y Cajal grant (RYC-2013-14511) of the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación, y Universidades (MICIU) of Spain. He also acknowledges financial support from MCIU through grant AYA2016-80889-P. A.A.M. is funded by the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Corporation, the Brinson Foundation, and the Moore Foundation in support of the LSSTC Data Science Fellowship Program; he also receives support as a CIERA Fellow by the CIERA Postdoctoral Fellowship Program (Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics, Northwestern University). A.C. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation with grant No. 1907975. W.-H.I., A.K., K.-L.L., C.-C.N., A.P., H.T., and P.-C.Y. acknowledge support from Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) Taiwan grants 104-2923-M-008-004-MY5, 107-2119-M-008-012, 108-2628-M-007-005-RSP, and 108-2112-M-007-025-MY3. D.D. is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. S.A. is supported by the GROWTH project, funded by the National Science Foundation under PIRE grant No. 1545949. A.S.C. is supported by GREAT research environment grant 2016-06012, funded by the Swedish Research Council. E.C.K. acknowledges support from the G.R.E.A.T. research environment and the Wenner-Gren Foundations. A.J.C.T. is thankful for fruitful discussions with J. Cepa, E. Fernández-García, J. A. Font, S. Jeong, A. Martín-Carrillo, A. M. Sintes, and S. Sokolov. D.A.H.B. acknowledges research support from the National Research Foundation of South Africa. S.B.P. and V.B. acknowledge BRICS grant No. "DST/IMRCD/BRICS/PilotCall1/ProFCheap/2017(G)" for part of the present work. J.S.B. was partially supported by a Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Data-Driven Discovery grant and a grant from the National Science Foundation, "Conceptualization of a Scalable Cyberinfrastructure Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics."

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Additional details

Additional titles

Alternative title
Kilonova Luminosity Function Constraints based on Zwicky Transient Facility Searches for 13 Neutron Star Mergers

Identifiers

Eprint ID
105068
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20200824-085517593

Related works

Describes
https://arxiv.org/abs/2006.11306 (URL)

Funding

NSF
AST-1545949
NSF
AST-1440341
ZTF partner institutions
Heising-Simons Foundation
12540303
NSF
AST-1106171
Indo-US Science and Technology Forum
Department of Science and Technology (India)
Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB)
GROWTH/2015-16
NSF
AST-1005313
John and Ginger Giovale
Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC)
Mt. Cuba Astronomical Foundation
National Optical Astronomical Observatory
Murty family
Caltech Space Innovation Council
Department of Energy (DOE)
DE-SC0007914
Ministry of Science and Technology (Taipei)
108-2112-M-008-001
NSF
PHY-2010970
Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation
Swedish Research Council
2016-06012
NSF
PHY-1607611
Large Synoptic Survey Telescope Corporation
NSF
OAC-1829740
Brinson Foundation
Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation
Severo Ochoa
SEV-2017-0709
Junta de Andalucía
P07-TIC-03094
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCINN)
AYA2012-39727-C03-01
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCINN)
AYA2015-71718R
Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MCINN)
PID2019-109974RB-I00
Russian Foundation for Basic Research
RFBR 19-02-00432
Ramón y Cajal Programme
RYC-2013-14511
Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (MICIU)
Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO)
AYA2016-80889-P
Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA)
Northwestern University
NSF
AST-1907975
Ministry of Science and Technology (Taipei)
104-2923-M-008-004-MY5
Ministry of Science and Technology (Taipei)
107-2119-M-008-012
Ministry of Science and Technology (Taipei)
108-2628-M-007-005-RSP
Ministry of Science and Technology (Taipei)
108-2112-M-007-025-MY3
Australian Government
G.R.E.A.T. Research Environment
Wenner-Gren Foundations
National Research Foundation (South Africa)
BRICS
DST/IMRCD/BRICS/PilotCall1/ProFCheap/2017(G)
David and Lucile Packard Foundation

Dates

Created
2020-08-24
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-16
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Astronomy Department, Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC), Zwicky Transient Facility, Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences (GPS)