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Title: Experimentally, How Dark Are Black Hole Mergers?

Abstract

The first Advanced LIGO observing run detected two black hole merger events with confidence and likely a third. Many groups organized to followup the events in the optical even though the strong theoretical prior that no optical emission should be seen. We carry through the logic of this by asking about the experimental upper limits to the optical light from Advanced LIGO black hole mergere events. We inventory the published optical searches for transient events associated with the black hole mergers. We describe the factors that go into a formal limit on the visibility of an event (sky area coverage, the coverage factor of the camera, the fraction of sky not covered by intervening objects), and list what is known from the literature of the followup teams quantitative assessment of each factor. Where possible we calculate the total probability from each group that the source was imaged. The calculation of confidence level is reviewed for the case of no background. We find that an experimental 95% upper limit on the magnitude of a black hole requires the sum of the total probabilities over all events to be more than 3. In the first Advanced LIGO observing run we were farmore » from reaching that threshold.« less

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [1]
  1. Fermilab
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Fermi National Accelerator Lab. (FNAL), Batavia, IL (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
OSTI Identifier:
1402482
Report Number(s):
arXiv:1609.09517; FERMILAB-CONF-16-713-AE-CD
1489055
DOE Contract Number:  
AC02-07CH11359
Resource Type:
Conference
Journal Name:
PoS
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: ICHEP2016; Conference: 38th International Conference on High Energy Physics, Chicago, IL, USA, 08/03-08/10/2016
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; 46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

Citation Formats

Annis, James, and Soares-Santos, Marcelle. Experimentally, How Dark Are Black Hole Mergers?. United States: N. p., 2016. Web.
Annis, James, & Soares-Santos, Marcelle. Experimentally, How Dark Are Black Hole Mergers?. United States.
Annis, James, and Soares-Santos, Marcelle. 2016. "Experimentally, How Dark Are Black Hole Mergers?". United States. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1402482.
@article{osti_1402482,
title = {Experimentally, How Dark Are Black Hole Mergers?},
author = {Annis, James and Soares-Santos, Marcelle},
abstractNote = {The first Advanced LIGO observing run detected two black hole merger events with confidence and likely a third. Many groups organized to followup the events in the optical even though the strong theoretical prior that no optical emission should be seen. We carry through the logic of this by asking about the experimental upper limits to the optical light from Advanced LIGO black hole mergere events. We inventory the published optical searches for transient events associated with the black hole mergers. We describe the factors that go into a formal limit on the visibility of an event (sky area coverage, the coverage factor of the camera, the fraction of sky not covered by intervening objects), and list what is known from the literature of the followup teams quantitative assessment of each factor. Where possible we calculate the total probability from each group that the source was imaged. The calculation of confidence level is reviewed for the case of no background. We find that an experimental 95% upper limit on the magnitude of a black hole requires the sum of the total probabilities over all events to be more than 3. In the first Advanced LIGO observing run we were far from reaching that threshold.},
doi = {},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/1402482}, journal = {PoS},
number = ,
volume = ICHEP2016,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Sep 29 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Thu Sep 29 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}

Conference:
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