Fermi GBM Counterparts to LIGO Gravitational-Wave Candidates

As the advanced configuration of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory has begun operations, we eagerly anticipate the detection of gravitational waves (GW) with LIGO in coincidence with a gamma-ray signal from the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM). The most likely source is a short Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) arising from the merger of two compact objects. With its broad sky coverage, GBM triggers and localizes more short GRBs than other active space missions, ~40 each year. Combining GBM and LIGO localization uncertainty regions may provide a smaller target to look for the GW host. A joint GBM-LIGO detection increases the confidence in the GW detection and helps characterize the parameters of the merger. Offline searches for weak GRBs that fail to trigger onboard Fermi indicate that additional short GRBs can be detected in the GBM data. I will discuss the implementation and expected benefits of joint searches to detect and localize GW candidates. I will also explore how the non-detection in the GBM data of a signal consistent with GW candidates in the LIGO data can affect follow-up strategies for counterpart searches by other observers.