FERMI-LAT observations of the ligo event GW150914

Markus Ackermann , Marco Ajello (1) , A. Albert (2) , B. Anderson (3) , M. Arimoto , William B. Atwood (4) , Magnus Axelsson , Luca Baldini , Jean Ballet (5) , Guido Barbiellini , Matthew G. Baring , D. Bastieri , J. Becerra Gonzalez , R. Bellazzini , E. Bissaldi , R. D. Blandford , E. D. Bloom , R. Bonino , E. Bottacini , T. J. Brandt , J. Bregeon (6) , R. J. Britto (7) , P. Bruel (8) , R. Buehler , T. H. Burnett , S. Buson , G. A. Caliandro , R. A. Cameron , R. Caputo , M. Caragiulo , P. A. Caraveo , J. M. Casandjian (9) , E. Cavazzuti , E. Charles , A. Chekhtman , J. Chiang , G. Chiaro , S. Ciprini , J. Cohen-Tanugi (6) , L. R. Cominsky , B. Condon (10) , F. Costanza , A. Cuoco , S. Cutini , F. D’ammando , D. Dumora (10) , F. De Palma , R. Desiante , S. W. Digel (11) , N. Di Lalla (12) , M. Di Mauro (13) , L. Di Venere , A. Domínguez , P. S. Drell , R. Dubois (14) , C. Favuzzi , S. J. Fegan (8) , E. C. Ferrara (15) , A. Franckowiak , Y. Fukazawa , S. Funk (16) , P. Fusco (17) , F. Gargano , D. Gasparrini , N. Gehrels , N. Giglietto , M. Giomi , P. Giommi , F. Giordano , M. Giroletti (18) , T. Glanzman , G. Godfrey , G. A. Gomez-Vargas , J. Granot , D. Green , I. A. Grenier (19) , M.-H. Grondin (10) , J. E. Grove , Lucas Guillemot (20, 21) , S. Guiriec , D. Hadasch , A. K. Harding (22) , E. Hays , J. W. Hewitt , A. B. Hill , D. Horan (8) , T. Jogler , G. Jóhannesson , T. Kamae , S. Kensei , D. Kocevski , M. Kuss (23) , G. La Mura (24) , S. Larsson (25) , L. Latronico , M. Lemoine-Goumard (10) , J. Li (26) , L. Li (27) , F. Longo , F. Loparco , M. N. Lovellette , P. Lubrano , G. M. Madejski , J. Magill , S. Maldera , A. Manfreda , M. Marelli , M. Mayer , M. N. Mazziotta , J. E. Mcenery , M. Meyer , P. F. Michelson (28) , N. Mirabal , T. Mizuno , A. A. Moiseev , M. E. Monzani , E. Moretti , A. Morselli , I. V. Moskalenko , S. Murgia , M. Negro (29) , E. Nuss (6) , T. Ohsugi , N. Omodei , M. Orienti , E. Orlando , J. F. Ormes , D. Paneque , J. S. Perkins (30) , M. Pesce-Rollins , F. Piron (6) , G. Pivato , T. A. Porter (31) , J. L. Racusin , S. Rainò , R. Rando , S. Razzaque , A. Reimer , O. Reimer , T. Reposeur (10) , S. Ritz (32, 33) , L. S. Rochester , R. W. Romani , P. M. Saz Parkinson (4) , C. Sgrò (34) , D. Simone (35) , E. J. Siskind , D. A. Smith (10) , F. Spada , G. Spandre , P. Spinelli (36) , D. J. Suson , H. Tajima (37) , J. G. Thayer , J. B. Thayer , D. J. Thompson (38) , L. Tibaldo , D. F. Torres , E. Troja , Y. Uchiyama (39) , T. M. Venters , G. Vianello , K. S. Wood (40) , M. Wood , G. Zaharijas , S. Zhu (41) , S. Zimmer (42)

1 Stanford University
2 GRPHE - Groupe de Recherche en Physique des Hautes Energies
3 LANL - Los Alamos National Laboratory
4 SCIPP - Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics
5 GREThA - Groupe de Recherche en Economie Théorique et Appliquée
6 LUPM - Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier
7 IPHT - Institut de Physique Théorique - UMR CNRS 3681
8 LLR - Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet
9 AIM (UMR7158 / UMR_E_9005 / UM_112) - Astrophysique Interprétation Modélisation
10 CENBG - Centre d'Etudes Nucléaires de Bordeaux Gradignan
11 SLAC - SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
12 UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research
13 Department of Molecular Medicine
14 IHU-LIRYC
15 GSFC - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
16 LSHTM - London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
17 INFN, sezione di Bari - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, sezione di Bari
18 INAF - Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica
19 ENSA Nantes - École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Nantes
20 USN - Unité Scientifique de la Station de Nançay
21 LPC2E - Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace
22 GSFC Astrophysics Science Division
23 Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Pisa
24 DIEE
25 GU - University of Gothenburg
26 CAU - China Agricultural University
27 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)
28 HEPL - Hansen Experimental Physics Lab [Stanford]
29 Institut Pasteur de Montevideo
30 University of Botswana
31 Department of Animal and Avian Sciences
32 Medical Sciences Division
33 Centre de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur la Biologie, la Santé la Société, et l’Environnement
34 CHU Dijon - Centre Hospitalier Universitaire de Dijon - Hôpital François Mitterrand
35 LERMA - Laboratoire d'Etude du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique
36 ENSA-V - École nationale supérieure d'architecture de Versailles
37 Plant - UC Davis - Department of Plant Sciences [Univ California Davis]
38 Sea Mammal Research Unit
39 Department of Physics [Tokyo]
40 NRL - Naval Research Laboratory
41 Zhejiang University
42 LCFC - Laboratoire de Conception Fabrication Commande

The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) has an instantaneous field of view (FoV) covering $\sim 1/5$ of the sky and it completes a survey of the entire sky in high-energy gamma-rays every 3 hr. It enables searches for transient phenomena over timescales from milliseconds to years. Among these phenomena could be electromagnetic counterparts to gravitational wave (GW) sources. In this paper, we present a detailed study of the LAT observations relevant to Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) event GW150914, which is the first direct detection of gravitational waves and has been interpreted as being due to the coalescence of two stellar-mass black holes. The localization region for GW150914 was outside the LAT FoV at the time of the GW signal. However, as part of routine survey observations, the LAT observed the entire LIGO localization region within ~70 minutes of the trigger and thus enabled a comprehensive search for a γ-ray counterpart to GW150914. The study of the LAT data presented here did not find any potential counterparts to GW150914, but it did provide limits on the presence of a transient counterpart above 100 MeV on timescales of hours to days over the entire GW150914 localization region.

Keywords: ravitational waves; methods: observational; gamma rays: general

Domains: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena [astro-ph.HE]; Sciences of the Universe [physics]

Markus Ackermann, Marco Ajello, A. Albert, B. Anderson, M. Arimoto, et al.. FERMI-LAT observations of the ligo event GW150914. The Astrophysical journal letters, 2016, 823 (1), pp.L2. ⟨10.3847/2041-8205/823/1/L2⟩. ⟨insu-01362128⟩