Skip to main content
OSTI.GOVU.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
 

A dark energy camera search for missing supergiants in the LMC after the advanced LIGO gravitational-wave event GW150914

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal. Letters (Online)
 [1]
  1. Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States). et al.
+ Show Author Affiliations
The collapse of a stellar core is expected to produce gravitational waves (GWs), neutrinos, and in most cases a luminous supernova. Sometimes, however, the optical event could be significantly less luminous than a supernova and a direct collapse to a black hole, where the star just disappears, is possible. The GW event GW150914 was detected by the LIGO Virgo Collaboration via a burst analysis that gave localization contours enclosing the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Shortly thereafter, we used DECam to observe 102 deg2 of the localization area, including 38 deg2 on the LMC for a missing supergiant search. We construct a complete catalog of LMC luminous red supergiants, the best candidates to undergo invisible core collapse, and collected catalogs of other candidates: less luminous red supergiants, yellow supergiants, blue supergiants, luminous blue variable stars, and Wolf–Rayet stars. Of the objects in the imaging region, all are recovered in the images. The timescale for stellar disappearance is set by the free-fall time, which is a function of the stellar radius. Our observations at 4 and 13 days after the event result in a search sensitive to objects of up to about 200 solar radii. We conclude that it is unlikely that GW150914 was caused by the core collapse of a relatively compact supergiant in the LMC, consistent with the LIGO Collaboration analyses of the gravitational waveform as best interpreted as a high mass binary black hole merger. Lastly, we discuss how to generalize this search for future very nearby core-collapse candidates.
Research Organization:
Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Argonne, IL (United States); Arizona U.; Australia, CSIRO, North Ryde; Barcelona, IEEC; Barcelona, IFAE; Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States); Caltech; Carnegie Inst. Observ.; Cerro-Tololo InterAmerican Obs.; Chicago U., KICP; Columbia U.; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States); Garching, Max Planck Inst., MPE; Harvard-Smithsonian Ctr. Astrophys.; ICREA, Barcelona; Illinois U., Urbana; Illinois U., Urbana, Astron. Dept.; Johns Hopkins U.; LIneA, Rio de Janeiro; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States); Madrid, CIEMAT; Maryland U.; Michigan U.; Munich U.; Munich, Tech. U., Universe; NASA, Goddard; Ohio State U.; Ohio State U., CCAPP; Ohio State U., Dept. Astron.; Ohio U.; Paris, Inst. Astrophys.; Penn State U.; Pennsylvania U.; Portsmouth U., ICG; Rhodes U.; Rio Grande do Sul U.; Rio de Janeiro Observ.; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States); Sao Paulo U.; Sao Paulo, IFT; Southampton U.; Stanford U., Phys. Dept.; Sussex U.; Texas A-M; U. Michigan, Dept. Astron.; UC, Berkeley; University Coll. London
Sponsoring Organization:
US Department of Energy; USDOE; USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP) (SC-25)
Contributing Organization:
The DES Collaboration
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; AC02-07CH11359; AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
1295214
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1409758
OSTI ID: 22654193
OSTI ID: 1456940
OSTI ID: 1297824
Report Number(s):
BNL--112472-2016-JA; FERMILAB-PUB-16-032-AE-PPD; LA-UR--16-20940; KA2301020
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal. Letters (Online), Journal Name: The Astrophysical Journal. Letters (Online) Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 823; ISSN 2041-8213
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (39)

Some secondary indications of gravitational collapse journal January 1980
The Large Magellanic Cloud and the distance scale journal December 2011
Observational Constraints on the Progenitors of Core-Collapse Supernovae: The Case for Missing High-Mass Stars journal January 2015
IceCube sensitivity for low-energy neutrinos from nearby supernovae journal November 2011
The Wolf-Rayet stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud: A comprehensive analysis of the WN class⋆⋆⋆ journal April 2014
A new survey of cool supergiants in the Magellanic Clouds journal May 2015
Long-rising Type II supernovae from Palomar Transient Factory and Caltech Core-Collapse Project journal March 2016
The USNO-B Catalog journal February 2003
The Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) journal February 2006
Search for Supernova Neutrino Bursts at Super‐Kamiokande journal November 2007
A Survey About Nothing: Monitoring a Million Supergiants for Failed Supernovae journal September 2008
SPITZER SAGE INFRARED PHOTOMETRY OF MASSIVE STARS IN THE LARGE MAGELLANIC CLOUD journal August 2009
Clustering of Local Group Distances: Publication bias or Correlated Measurements? i. the Large Magellanic Cloud journal April 2014
The dark Energy Camera journal October 2015
Black hole Formation in Failing Core-Collapse Supernovae journal March 2011
Yellow and red Supergiants in the Large Magellanic Cloud journal April 2012
The Blanco Cosmology Survey: data Acquisition, Processing, Calibration, Quality Diagnostics, and data Release journal September 2012
Very low Energy Supernovae from Neutrino mass loss journal May 2013
Observing the next Galactic Supernova journal November 2013
The Landscape of the Neutrino Mechanism of Core-Collapse Supernovae: Neutron star and Black hole mass Functions, Explosion Energies, and Nickel Yields journal March 2015
A Modern Search for Wolf–Rayet Stars in the Magellanic Clouds. ii. a Second year of Discoveries journal July 2015
First Searches for Optical Counterparts to Gravitational-Wave Candidate Events journal February 2014
A coherent method for detection of gravitational wave bursts journal May 2008
SNEWS - The Supernova Early Warning System journal August 2011
Taking the “un” out of “Unnovae” journal April 2013
Constraints on core collapse from the black hole mass function journal November 2014
Luminous blue variables are antisocial: their isolation implies that they are kicked mass gainers in binary evolution journal December 2014
Fast luminous blue transients from newborn black holes journal June 2015
Gone without a bang: an archival HST survey for disappearing massive stars journal September 2015
The search for failed supernovae with the Large Binocular Telescope: first candidates journal May 2015
Observing gravitational waves from core-collapse supernovae in the advanced detector era journal February 2016
Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger journal February 2016
Observation of a neutrino burst from the supernova SN1987A journal April 1987
Observation of a neutrino burst in coincidence with supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud journal April 1987
The death of massive stars - I. Observational constraints on the progenitors of Type II-P supernovae journal May 2009
The Dark Energy Survey data processing and calibration system conference September 2012
Supernova Neutrino Detection journal November 2012
Gravitational Waves from Gravitational Collapse journal January 2011
Core-Collapse Supernovae from 9 to 120 Solar Masses Based on Neutrino-Powered Explosions journal April 2016

Cited By (14)

Prospects for observing and localizing gravitational-wave transients with Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA journal April 2018
Observations of GW170817 by DESGW and the DECam GW-EM Collaboration journal October 2017
DESGW Optical Follow-up of BBH LIGO-Virgo Events with DECam journal October 2017
Cosmology with Gravitational Waves in DES and LSST journal October 2017
Localization and Broadband Follow-Up of the Gravitational-Wave Transient Gw150914 collection January 2016
Prospects for observing and localizing gravitational-wave transients with Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA other January 2020
A Search for Electron Antineutrinos Associated with Gravitational-Wave Events Gw150914 and Gw151226 Using Kamland text January 2016
Prospects for observing and localizing gravitational-wave transients with Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA text January 2020
Localization and Broadband Follow-Up of the Gravitational-Wave Transient Gw150914 journal July 2016
A Search for Electron Antineutrinos Associated with Gravitational-Wave Events Gw150914 and Gw151226 Using Kamland journal September 2016
The Electromagnetic Counterpart of the Binary Neutron Star Merger LIGO/Virgo GW170817. I. Discovery of the Optical Counterpart Using the Dark Energy Camera journal October 2017
GROWTH on S190426c: Real-time Search for a Counterpart to the Probable Neutron Star–Black Hole Merger using an Automated Difference Imaging Pipeline for DECam journal August 2019
GROWTH on S190510g: DECam Observation Planning and Follow-up of a Distant Binary Neutron Star Merger Candidate journal August 2019
Localization and broadband follow-up of the gravitational-wave transient GW150914 text January 2016

Similar Records

A DARK ENERGY CAMERA SEARCH FOR MISSING SUPERGIANTS IN THE LMC AFTER THE ADVANCED LIGO GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE EVENT GW150914
Journal Article · Tue May 31 20:00:00 EDT 2016 · Astrophysical Journal Letters · OSTI ID:22654193

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
Magellanic Clouds
galaxies: individual (LMC)
gravitational waves
supergiants
supernovae: general