Swift-XRT Follow-up of O2 GW Triggers: A Study of the X-ray Transient Population
Abstract
Detecting and studying the electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational wave (GW) events is crucial toward advancing our understanding of the merging of compact objects. This can prove challenging as the current array of GW observatories can only localize merger events to regions encompassing, at best, many tens of square degrees. Consequently, optical followup searches result in hundreds of transients and potential counterparts. Conversely, the X-ray sky is less active and X-rays can therefore serve a unique role in counterpart identification. However, the properties of the soft X-ray transient population are not as well-known and the rates uncertain. During the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration's 2nd observation run (O2), Swift followed up on 8 GW triggers, covering hundreds of square degrees with over 1 Megasecond of observing time. We present the results of Swift’s O2 follow-up campaign of binary black hole mergers and the properties of the population of detected spurious X-ray sources and transients. We also discuss the implications of these results for X-ray follow-up searches in future GW observing runs.
- Publication:
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AAS/High Energy Astrophysics Division
- Pub Date:
- March 2019
- Bibcode:
- 2019HEAD...1711283K