A follow-up strategy enabling discovery of electromagnetic counterparts to highly magnified gravitationally lensed gravitational waves
Abstract
Making an unambiguous detection of lensed gravitational waves (GWs) is challenging with current-generation detectors due to large uncertainties in sky localizations and other inferred parameter distributions. However, in the case of binary neutron star (BNS) mergers, this challenge can be overcome by detecting multiple images of its lensed kilonova (KN) counterpart, simultaneously confirming the lensing nature of the event and locating it precisely—further enabling a wealth of lensed multi-messenger science. Such a strategy demands answers to two key problems: (i) How can candidate lensed BNS events be identified fast enough to ensure the lensed KN is still detectable? (ii) What is the most economical observing strategy on telescope time for following up candidate lensed events to discover lensed KNe? In this article we discuss solutions to both points, specifically how GW detections of progenitors in the approximately 2.5–5 M⊙ black hole ‘mass gap’ can be interpreted as candidate lensed BNS events, giving evidence for lensing from just a single detection, and we present a strategy that can actively be employed for follow-up of such events in the O4 run of LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) and beyond. This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue ‘Multi-messenger gravitational lensing (Part 2)’.
Read the paper
Related studies
- A Survey on Knowledge Graphs: Representation, Acquisition, and Applications
- Toxicity of nanomaterials
- The Human Gene Mutation Database: towards a comprehensive repository of inherited mutation data for medical research, genetic diagnosis and next-generation sequencing studies
- Halogen bonding (X‐bonding): A biological perspective
- Biofilm formation at the air–liquid interface by the Pseudomonas fluorescens SBW25 wrinkly spreader requires an acetylated form of cellulose
- Opioid Activation of Toll-Like Receptor 4 Contributes to Drug Reinforcement
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.