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LIGO Begins Joint Observing with the NASA Swift Satellite and with the TAROT and QUEST Wide-Field Optical Telescopes
On December 20, 2009, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration began officially working with three telescope projects - the NASA Swift satellite observatory, Télescopes à Action Rapide pour les Objets Transitoires (TAROT), and Project QUEST - to conduct joint searches for correlated gravitational wave and electromagnetic emissions from cataclysmic astrophysical events such as supernovae and gamma ray bursts.
By coherently analyzing the data from three interferometers -- the two LIGO interferometers located in Hanford, WA and Livingston, LA and the Virgo interferometer located in Cascina, Italy - within a narrow time window and in near real time, potential gravitational wave candidates can be located to within a sufficiently narrow sky region. This sky position is sent to Swift, TAROT and QUEST, which then rapidly point their telescopes toward the source location to perform follow-up X-ray observations (in the case of Swift) or optical follow-ups (for TAROT and QUEST).
From an astronomical standpoint, the observation of a gravitational wave signal together with an associated electromagnetic counterpart can provide a significant amount of information about the astrophysics of the source. For example, short hard gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are thought to originate from the mergers of neutron stars or neutron star and black hole binaries, but no definitive evidence yet exists that links GRB emissions to binary mergers. Near simultaneous observations of x-rays with Swift and gravitational waves with LIGO/Virgo could provide the 'smoking gun' for such a link. Similarly, the observation of gravitational waves arising from a galactic supernova identified by TAROT or QUEST could reveal much about the internal dynamics of core collapse and subsequent shock wave formation. And while gravitational waves have not yet been detected, the simultaneous observation of a strong gravitational wave signal together with an electromagnetic/neutrino counterpart would provide compelling evidence for the first detection.
These searches, whereby LIGO/Virgo rapid analyses are used to rapidly alert astronomers about possible interesting astrophysical events, are a new way of doing gravitational wave astronomy and point the way toward the future in which gravitational wave observatories play an important role in multi-messenger astronomy. In addition to Swift, TAROT, and QUEST, the LIGO Scientific and Virgo Collaborations are developing agreements with other wide field optical telescopes as well as with radio telescopes and neutrino detectors to search for correlated gravitational wave astrophysical phenomena.
LIGO is operated by the California Institute of Technology and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and funded by NSF. The Virgo gravitational wave detector is operated by an Italian-French-Dutch consortium and funded by INFN and CNRS. The NASA Swift observatory is a low earth orbit satellite whose primary mission is to investigate gamma ray bursts. Télescopes à Action Rapide pour les Objets Transitoires (TAROT) operates wide-field telescopes in France and Chile and is managed by the Observatoire de Haute Provence, France. The QUEST project uses a 10 square degree camera on the ESO Schmidt telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, and is a collaboration between Yale University, Indiana University, and Berkeley.
Astronomy's Messengers comes to universities in the southeastern US
In keeping with LIGO's continuing mission to educate the public of its activities, "Astronomy's Messengers: listening to the universe with gravitational waves", a touring exhibit developed by LSC scientists in conjunction with Lee H. Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership is traveling in the southeastern United States. Information about the exhibit including tour dates, photos, and locations can be found here.
The NASA Swift Observatory
The NASA Swift observatory is a low earth orbit satellite whose primary mission is to investigate gamma ray bursts. Swift is working with LIGO and Virgo performing target of opportunity observations using data from the LIGO and Virgo instruments to search for possible gravitational wave sources.