Joint Gamma-ray and Gravitational Wave Searches for Neutron Star Mergers

On August 17th, 2017 the merging of two neutron stars (NSs) was jointly detected in gravitational waves (GWs) by LIGO and gamma-rays by Fermi GBM. Because of the small intrinsic time offset between these two singles, these events can be searched for together. While GW170817 and GRB 170817A were fully independent detections (after GW data cleaning), this will not always be the case. Joint searches can increase the number of confirmed GW-detections by elevating the significance of sub-threshold signals and by independent confirmation of single interferometer detections. Further, the independent localizations can be combined to further constrain the region of interest. This will greatly aid the follow-up effort for GRB afterglow and kilonovae. We will discuss how this can be done, what LIGO and GBM are implementing for the O3 observing run this year, and plans for the future.