Searching the Gamma-ray Sky for Counterparts to Gravitational Wave Sources: Fermi GBM and LAT Observations of LVT151012 and GW151226

J J Racusin (1, 2) , E B Burns (3) , A. A Goldstein (4) , V. Connaughton (4) , C.A. Wilson-Hodge (5) , P. Jenke (3) , L. Blackburn (6) , M S Briggs (7) , J B Broida (8) , J J Camp (9) , N. Christensen (10) , C M Hui (5) , L L Littenberg (4) , P S Shawhan (11) , L. Singer (2) , J J Veitch (12) , P B Bhat (3) , W. Cleveland (3) , G F Fitzpatrick (13) , M H Gibby (14) , A von Kienlin (15) , S Mcbreen (16) , B. Mailyan (3) , C.A. Meegan (3) , W.S. Paciesas (4) , R.D. Preece (3) , O.J. Roberts (17) , M S Stanbro (7) , P Veres (7) , B.-B B Zhang (3) , M. Ackermann (17) , A. Albert (18) , William B. Atwood (19) , Magnus Axelsson (20) , L. Baldini (21) , Jean Ballet (22) , Guido Barbiellini (23) , Matthew G. Baring (24) , D. Bastieri (25) , R. Bellazzini (26) , E. Bissaldi (21) , R.D. Blandford (27) , E.D. Bloom (28) , R. Bonino (29) , J. Bregeon (30) , Pascal Bruel , S. Buson (2) , G.A. Caliandro (27) , R. A. Cameron (27) , R. Caputo (19) , M. Caragiulo (31) , P. A. Caraveo (32) , E. Cavazzuti (33) , E. Charles (27) , J. Chiang (27) , S. Ciprini (33) , F. Costanza (21) , A. Cuoco (34) , S. Cutini (33) , F. d'Ammando (35) , F. de Palma (21) , R. Desiante (29) , S. W. Digel (27) , N. Di Lalla (36) , M. Di Mauro (28) , L. Di Venere (31) , P S. Drell (27) , C. Favuzzi (31) , E.C. Ferrara (37) , W.B. Focke (27) , Y. Fukazawa (38) , S Funk (39) , P. Fusco (31) , F. Gargano (21) , D. Gasparrini (33) , N. Giglietto (26) , G. Gill (40) , M. Giroletti (41) , T. Glanzmann (28) , J. Granot (42) , D. Green (2) , J.E Grove (43) , Lucas Guillemot (37) , S. Guiriec (2) , A.K. Harding (2) , T. Jogler (44) , G. Jóhannesson (45) , T. Kamae (46) , S. Kensei (38) , D. Kocevski (2) , M. Kuss (31) , S. Larsson (20) , L. Latronico (29) , J. Li (47) , F. Longo (26) , F. Loparco , P. Lubrano (48) , J. D. Magill (11) , S. Maldera (29) , D. Malyshev (49) , J. E. Mcenery (2) , P.F. Michelson (27) , T. Mizuno (50) , A. Morselli (51) , I. V. Moskalenko (28) , M. Negro (29) , E. Nuss (30) , N. Omodei (28) , M. Orienti (52) , E. Orlando (27) , J. F. Ormes (53) , D. Paneque (54) , S. Perkins (2) , M. Pesce-Rollins (31) , Frédéric Piron (30) , G. Pivato (21) , T.A. Porter (27) , G. Principe (49) , S. Rainò (26) , R. Rando (25) , M. Razzano (55) , S. Razzaque (56) , A. Reimer (57) , O. Reimer (57) , P.M. Saz Parkinson (19) , J.D. Scargle (58) , C S Sgrò (21) , D S Simone (59) , E. J. Siskind (60) , D.A. Smith (61) , F S Spada (21) , P S Spinelli (31) , D.J. Suson (62) , H H Tajima (63) , J.B Thayer (28) , D.F Torres (47) , E Troja (2) , Y Uchiyama (64) , G Vianello (43) , K.S. S Wood (43) , M. Wood (22)

1 GSFC - NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
2 LHEA - GSFC Laboratory for High Energy Astrophysics
3 UAH - University of Alabama in Huntsville
4 USRA - Universities Space Research Association
5 MSFC - NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
6 MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology
7 CSPAR - Center for Space Plasma and Aeronomic Research [Huntsville]
8 Carleton College
9 Observatoire Royal de Belgique
10 Department of Physics and Astronomy [Northfield]
11 University of Maryland [College Park]
12 University of Birmingham [Birmingham]
13 UCD - University College Dublin [Dublin]
14 Jacobs Technology ESCG
15 MPE - Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik
16 University College of Dublin
17 DESY - Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron [Hamburg]
18 LANL - Los Alamos National Laboratory
19 SCIPP - Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics
20 KTH - Royal Institute of Technology [Stockholm]
21 INFN - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare [Pisa]
22 AIM (UMR7158 / UMR_E_9005 / UM_112) - Astrophysique Interprétation Modélisation
23 INFN, Sezione di Trieste - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Trieste
24 Department of Physics and Astronomy [Houston]
25 INFN, Sezione di Padova - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Padova
26 INFN, sezione di Bari - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, sezione di Bari
27 KIPAC - Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
28 Stanford University
29 INFN, Sezione di Torino - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Torino
30 LUPM - Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier
31 Dipartimento di Fisica "M. Merlin" dell'Università e del Politecnico di Bari
32 IASF-MI - Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica - Milano
33 Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI) Science Data Center
34 Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Torino
35 IRA - Istituto di Radioastronomia [Bologna]
36 UGC-DAE Consortium for Scientific Research
37 USN - Unité Scientifique de la Station de Nançay
38 Hiroshima City University
39 SLAC - SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory
40 Open University of Israël
41 INAF - Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica
42 Department of Natural Sciences [Ra'anana}
43 NRL - Naval Research Laboratory
44 Friedrich-Alexander-Universität
45 Science Institute, University of Iceland
46 Tokyo University of Science [Tokyo]
47 ICE-CSIC - Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai [Barcelona]
48 INFN, Sezione di Perugia - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Perugia
49 ECAP - Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics
50 University of Iceland [Reykjavik]
51 INFN, Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata - Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Roma Tor Vergata
52 Istituto di Radioastronomia INAF
53 Department of Physics and Astronomy [Denver]
54 MPIK - Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik
55 Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare, Sezione di Pisa
56 PPM Group [University of Johannesburg]
57 Universität Innsbruck [Innsbruck]
58 ARC - NASA Ames Research Center
59 LERMA - Laboratoire d'Etude du Rayonnement et de la Matière en Astrophysique
60 NYCB Real-Time Computing Inc., Lattingtown
61 CENBG - Centre d'Etudes Nucléaires de Bordeaux Gradignan
62 Purdue University [West Lafayette]
63 Nagoya University
64 Department of Physics

We present the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) and Large Area Telescope (LAT) observations of the LIGO binary black hole merger event GW151226 and candidate LVT151012. At the time of the LIGO triggers on LVT151012 and GW151226, GBM was observing 68% and 83% of the localization regions, and LAT was observing 47% and 32%, respectively. No candidate electromagnetic counterparts were detected by either the GBM or LAT. We present a detailed analysis of the GBM and LAT data over a range of timescales from seconds to years, using automated pipelines and new techniques for characterizing the flux upper bounds across large areas of the sky. Due to the partial GBM and LAT coverage of the large LIGO localization regions at the trigger times for both events, differences in source distances and masses, as well as the uncertain degree to which emission from these sources could be beamed, these non-detections cannot be used to constrain the variety of theoretical models recently applied to explain the candidate GBM counterpart to GW150914.

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

Domains: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena [astro-ph.HE]

J J Racusin, E B Burns, A. A Goldstein, V. Connaughton, C.A. Wilson-Hodge, et al.. Searching the Gamma-ray Sky for Counterparts to Gravitational Wave Sources: Fermi GBM and LAT Observations of LVT151012 and GW151226. The Astrophysical Journal, 2017, 835 (1), pp.82. ⟨10.3847/1538-4357/835/1/82⟩. ⟨insu-01492674⟩