GCN Circular 26759

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration report:

We identified the compact binary merger candidate S200115j during
real-time processing of data from LIGO Hanford Observatory (H1), LIGO
Livingston Observatory (L1), and Virgo Observatory (V1) at 2020-01-15
04:23:09.742 UTC (GPS time: 1263097407.742). The candidate was found
by the GstLAL [1], PyCBC Live [2], MBTAOnline [3], and SPIIR [4]
analysis pipelines.

S200115j is an event of interest because its false alarm rate, as
estimated by the online analysis, is 2.1e-11 Hz, or about one in 1e3
years. The event's properties can be found at this URL:
https://gracedb.ligo.org/superevents/S200115j

The classification of the GW signal, in order of descending
probability, is MassGap (>99%), Terrestrial (<1%), BNS (<1%), NSBH
(<1%), or BBH (<1%).

Assuming the candidate is astrophysical in origin, the probability
that the lighter compact object has a mass < 3 solar masses (HasNS) is
>99%. Using the masses and spins inferred from the signal, the
probability of matter outside the final compact object (HasRemnant) is
9%.

Three sky maps are available at this time and can be retrieved from
the GraceDB event page:
 * bayestar.fits.gz,0, an initial localization generated by BAYESTAR
[5], distributed via GCN notice about 6 minutes after the candidate
event time.
 * bayestar.fits.gz,1, an initial localization generated by BAYESTAR
[5], distributed via GCN notice about 12 minutes after the candidate
event time.
 * bayestar.fits.gz,2, an initial localization generated by BAYESTAR
[5], distributed via GCN notice about an hour after the candidate
event time.

The preferred sky map at this time is bayestar.fits.gz,2. For the
bayestar.fits.gz,2 sky map, the 90% credible region is 908 deg2.
Marginalized over the whole sky, the a posteriori luminosity distance
estimate is 331 +/- 97 Mpc (a posteriori mean +/- standard deviation).

For further information about analysis methodology and the contents of
this alert, refer to the LIGO/Virgo Public Alerts User Guide
<https://emfollow.docs.ligo.org/userguide/>.

 [1] Messick et al. PRD 95, 042001 (2017)
 [2] Nitz et al. PRD 98, 024050 (2018)
 [3] Adams et al. CQG 33, 175012 (2016)
 [4] Qi Chu, PhD Thesis, The University of Western Australia (2017)
 [5] Singer & Price PRD 93, 024013 (2016)