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GCN Circular 34264

Subject
LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA S230726a: Identification of a GW compact binary merger candidate
Date
2023-07-26T01:38:51Z (a year ago)
From
Andy C <andy.c.80297@gmail.com>
Via
Web form
The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration, and the
KAGRA Collaboration report:

We identified the compact binary merger candidate S230726a during
real-time processing of data from LIGO Livingston Observatory (L1) at
2023-07-26 00:29:40.060 UTC (GPS time: 1374366598.060). The candidate
was found by the GstLAL [1] analysis pipeline.

S230726a is an event of interest because its false alarm rate, as
estimated by the online analysis, is 3.8e-14 Hz, or about one in 1e6
years. The event's properties can be found at this URL:

https://gracedb.ligo.org/superevents/S230726a

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

Assuming the candidate is astrophysical in origin, the probability
that the lighter compact object is consistent with a neutron star mass
(HasNS) is <1%. [2] Using the masses and spins inferred from the
signal, the probability of matter outside the final compact object
(HasRemnant) is <1%. [2] Both HasNS and HasRemnant consider the
support of several neutron star equations of state. The probability
that either of the binary components lies between 3 and 5 solar masses
(HasMassgap) is <1%.

Two sky maps are available at this time and can be retrieved from the
GraceDB event page:
 * bayestar.multiorder.fits,0, an initial localization generated by
BAYESTAR [3], distributed via GCN notice about 30 seconds after the
candidate event time.
 * bayestar.multiorder.fits,1, an initial localization generated by
BAYESTAR [3], distributed via GCN notice about 5 minutes after the
candidate event time.

The preferred sky map at this time is bayestar.multiorder.fits,1. For
the bayestar.multiorder.fits,1 sky map, the 90% credible region is
24219 deg2. Marginalized over the whole sky, the a posteriori
luminosity distance estimate is 2077 +/- 699 Mpc (a posteriori mean
+/- standard deviation).

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

 [1] Tsukada et al. arXiv:2305.06286 (2023) and Ewing et al.
arXiv:2305.05625 (2023)
 [2] Chatterjee et al. ApJ 896, 54 (2020)
 [3] Singer & Price PRD 93, 024013 (2016)
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