Prospects for Observing and Localizing Gravitational-Wave Transients with Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo

• Published in: Living reviews in relativity Vol. 19; no. 1; p. 1
• Main Authors: Abbott, B. P., Abbott, R., Abbott, T. D., Abernathy, M. R., Acernese, F., Ackley, K., Adams, C., Adams, T., Addesso, P., Adhikari, R. X., Camp, J. B., Gehrels, N., Singer, L. P.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Goddard Space Flight Center Springer International Publishing 08.02.2016; Living Reviews; SpringerOpen
• Subjects: Astrophysics; Astrophysics and Astroparticles; Classical and Quantum Gravitation; Cosmology; Data analysis; Earth Resources And Remote Sensing; Electromagnetic counterparts; General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology; Gravitational waves; Gravitational-wave detectors; High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena; Physics; Physics and Astronomy; Relativity Theory; Review; Review Article; Sciences of the Universe; Data Analysis; Gravitational Waves Gravitational-Wave Detectors Electromagnetic; Counterparts; Data analysis; Electromagnetic counterparts; Gravitational waves; Gravitational-wave detectors
• ISSN: 2367-3613; 1433-8351; 1433-8351
• DOI: 10.1007/lrr-2016-1

We present a possible observing scenario for the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo gravitational-wave detectors over the next decade, with the intention of providing information to the astronomy community to facilitate planning for multi-messenger astronomy with gravitational waves. We determine the expected sensitivity of the network to transient gravitational-wave signals, and study the capability of the network to determine the sky location of the source. We report our findings for gravitational-wave transients, with particular focus on gravitational-wave signals from the inspiral of binary neutron-star systems, which are considered the most promising for multi-messenger astronomy. The ability to localize the sources of the detected signals depends on the geographical distribution of the detectors and their relative sensitivity, and 90% credible regions can be as large as thousands of square degrees when only two sensitive detectors are operational. Determining the sky position of a significant fraction of detected signals to areas of 5 sq. deg to 20 sq. deg will require at least three detectors of sensitivity within a factor of approximately 2 of each other and with a broad frequency bandwidth. Should the third LIGO detector be relocated to India as expected, a significant fraction of gravitational-wave signals will be localized to a few square degrees by gravitational-wave observations alone.