Prospects for Observing and Localizing Gravitational-Wave Transients with Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA

Document #:

LIGO-P1200087-v47

Document type:

P - Publications

Abstract:

We present possible observing scenarios for the Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA gravitational-wave detectors over the next decade, with the intention of providing information to the astronomy community to facilitate planning for multi-messenger astronomy with gravitational waves. We estimate the sensitivity of the network to transient gravitational-wave signals, and study the capability of the network to determine the sky location of the source. We report our findings for gravitational-wave transients, with particular focus on gravitational-wave signals from the inspiral of binary neutron star systems, which are the most promising targets for multi-messenger astronomy. The ability to localize the sources of the detected signals depends on the geographical distribution of the detectors and their relative sensitivity, and 90% credible regions can be as large as thousands of square degrees when only two sensitive detectors are operational. Determining the sky position of a significant fraction of detected signals to areas of 5–20 square degrees requires at least three detectors of sensitivity within a factor of ~2 of each other and with a broad frequency bandwidth. When all detectors, including KAGRA and the third LIGO detector in India, reach design sensitivity, a significant fraction of gravitational-wave signals will be localized to a few square degrees by gravitational-wave observations alone.

Files in Document:

• Manuscript (gw_commission_observe_GW170817.pdf, file is not accessible)

Other Files:

• KAGRA sensitivity curves (fig1_kagra_sensitivity.txt, file is not accessible)
• LIGO sensitivity curves (fig1_aligo_sensitivity.txt, file is not accessible)
• Virgo sensitivity curves (fig1_adv_sensitivity.txt, file is not accessible)

Topics:

• Commissioning
• Compact Binaries
• Astrophysics / Multi-messenger
• GW Bursts

Author Groups:

• LVC

Keywords:

observing-scenario

Notes and Changes:

Version to match publication in Living Reviews in Relativity 2018.

Publication Information:

http://arxiv.org/abs/1304.0670
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41114-018-0012-9