The first six months of the Advanced LIGO’s and Advanced Virgo’s third observing run with GRANDMA

S. Antier (1) , S. Agayeva , V. Aivazyan , S. Alishov , E. Arbouch (2) , A. Baransky , K. Barynova , J.M. Bai , S. Basa (3) , S. Beradze , E. Bertin (2) , J. Berthier , M. Blažek , M. Boër (4) , O. Burkhonov , A. Burrell , A. Cailleau (5) , B. Chabert (6) , J.C. Chen , N. Christensen (4) , A. Coleiro (1) , B. Cordier (7) , D. Corre (8) , M.W. Coughlin , D. Coward , H. Crisp , C. Delattre , T. Dietrich , J.-G. Ducoin (8) , P.-A. Duverne (8) , G. Marchal-Duval (8) , B. Gendre , L. Eymar (4) , P. Fock-Hang , X. Han , P. Hello (8) , E.J. Howell , R. Inasaridze , N. Ismailov , D.A. Kann , G. Kapanadze , A. Klotz (5, 6) , N. Kochiashvili , C. Lachaud (1) , N. Leroy (8) , A. Le van Su (3) , W.L. Lin , W.X. Li , P. Lognone (8) , R. Marron (1) , J. Mo , J. Moore , R. Natsvlishvili , K. Noysena (4, 5) , S. Perrigault , A. Peyrot , D. Samadov , T. Sadibekova (7) , A. Simon , C. Stachie (4) , J.P. Teng , P. Thierry , C.C. Thöne , Y. Tillayev , D. Turpin , A. de Ugarte Postigo , F. Vachier , M. Vardosanidze , V. Vasylenko , Z. Vidadi , X.F. Wang , C.J. Wang , J. Wei , S.Y. Yan , J.C. Zhang , J.J. Zhang , X.H. Zhang

1 APC (UMR_7164) - AstroParticule et Cosmologie
2 IAP - Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris
3 LAM - Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille
4 ARTEMIS - Astrophysique Relativiste Théories Expériences Métrologie Instrumentation Signaux
5 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie
6 UT3 - Université Toulouse III - Paul Sabatier
7 AIM (UMR7158 / UMR_E_9005 / UM_112) - Astrophysique Interprétation Modélisation
8 LAL - Laboratoire de l'Accélérateur Linéaire

We present the Global Rapid Advanced Network Devoted to the Multi-messenger Addicts (GRANDMA). The network consists of 21 telescopes with both photometric and spectroscopic facilities. They are connected together thanks to a dedicated infrastructure. The network aims at coordinating the observations of large sky position estimates of transient events to enhance their follow-up and reduce the delay between the initial detection and optical confirmation. The GRANDMA programme mainly focuses on follow-up of gravitational-wave alerts to find and characterize the electromagnetic counterpart during the third observational campaign of the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors. But it allows for follow-up of any transient alerts involving neutrinos or gamma-ray bursts, even those with poor spatial localization. We present the different facilities, tools, and methods we developed for this network and show its efficiency using observations of LIGO/Virgo S190425z, a binary neutron star merger candidate. We furthermore report on all GRANDMA follow-up observations performed during the first six months of the LIGO–Virgo observational campaign, and we derive constraints on the kilonova properties assuming that the events’ locations were imaged by our telescopes.

Mots clés: gravitational waves; methods: observational; stars: neutron; neutron star: binary; gamma ray: burst; network; VIRGO; LIGO; structure; gravitational radiation; messenger; electromagnetic; localization; efficiency; optical

Domaines: Astrophysique [astro-ph]; Instrumentations et Détecteurs [physics.ins-det]

S. Antier, S. Agayeva, V. Aivazyan, S. Alishov, E. Arbouch, et al.. The first six months of the Advanced LIGO’s and Advanced Virgo’s third observing run with GRANDMA. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 2020, 492 (3), pp.3904-3927. ⟨10.1093/mnras/stz3142⟩. ⟨hal-02371396⟩