Fermi Observations of the LIGO Event GW170104
Goldstein, A. ; Veres, P. ; Burns, E. ; ...Cavazzuti, E.
Sep - 2017
DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa8319

journal : The Astrophysical Journal

Volume : 846 ; Issue : 1
type: Article Journal

Abstract
We present the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) and Large Area Telescope (LAT) observations of the LIGO binary black hole merger (BBH) event GW170104. No candidate electromagnetic counterpart was detected by either GBM or LAT. A detailed analysis of the GBM and LAT data over timescales from seconds to days covering the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) localization region is presented. The resulting flux upper bound from the GBM is (5.2–9.4) × 10−7 erg cm−2 s−1 in the 10–1000 keV range and from the LAT is (0.2–90) × 10−9 erg cm−2 s−1 in the 0.1–1 GeV range. We also describe the improvements to our automated pipelines and analysis techniques for searching for and characterizing the potential electromagnetic counterparts for future gravitational-wave events from Advanced LIGO/Virgo.

keywords : gamma rays: general; gravitational waves; methods: observational