TOROS Optical follow-up of the Advanced LIGO-VIRGO O2 second observational campaign

RODOLFO ARTOLA; MARTÍN BEROIZ; JUAN CABRAL; RICHARD CAMUCCIO; MOISES CASTILLO; VAHRAM CHAVUSHYAN; CARLOS COLAZO; HECTOR CUEVAS LARENAS; DARREN L. DEPOY; MARIO C. DÍAZ; MARIANO DOMINGUEZ; DEBORAH DULTZIN; DANIELA FERNÁNDEZ; ANTONIO C. FERREYRA; ALDO FONROUGE; JOSÉ FRANCO; DARIO GRAÑA; CARLA GIRANDINI; SEBASTIÁN GUROVICH; ANTONIO KANAAN; DIEGO GARCÍA LAMBAS; MARCELO LARES; ALEJANDRO F. HINOJOSA; ANDREA HINOJOSA; AMERICO F. HINOJOSA; OMAR LÓPEZ-CRUZ; LUCAS M. MACRI; JENNIFER L. MARSHALL; RAUL MELIA; WENDY MENDOZA; JOSÉ L. NILO CASTELLÓN; NELSON PADILLA; VICTOR PEREZ; TANIA PEÑUELA; WAHLTYN RATTRAY; Vı́CTOR RENZI; EMMANUEL Rı́OS-LÓPEZ; AMELIA RAMı́REZ RIVERA; TIAGO RIBEIRO; HORACIO RODRIGUE; BRUNO SANCHEZ; MATIAS SCHNEITER; WILLIAM SCHOENELL; MANUEL STARCK; RUBEN VRECH; CECILIA QUIÑONES; LUIS TAPIA; MARINA TORNATORE; SERGIO TORRES-FLORES; ERVIN VILCHIS; ADAM ZADROżNY

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY

WILEY-BLACKWELL PUBLISHING, INC

Lugar: Londres; Año: 2020

0035-8711

ABSTRACTWe present the results of the optical follow-up, conducted by the TOROS collaboration, of gravitational wave events detected during the Advanced LIGO-Virgo secondobserving run (Nov 2016 ? Aug 2017). Given the limited field of view (∼ 1000) of ourobservational instrumentation we targeted galaxies within the area of high localizationprobability that were observable from our sites. We analyzed the observations usingdifference imaging, followed by a Random Forest algorithm to discriminate betweenreal and bogus transients. For all three events that we respond to, except GW170817,we did not find any bona fide optical transient that was plausibly linked with theobserved gravitational wave event. Our observations were conducted using telescopesat Estaci´on Astrof´ısica de Bosque Alegre, Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory,and the Dr. Cristina V. Torres Memorial Astronomical Observatory. Our results areconsistent with the LIGO-Virgo detections of a binary black hole merger (GW170104)for which no electromagnetic counterparts were expected, as well as a binary neutronstar merger (GW170817) for which an optical transient was found as expected.