GCN Circular 36670

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration, and the KAGRA Collaboration report:

We identified the compact binary merger candidate S240615ea during real-time processing of data from LIGO Hanford Observatory (H1), LIGO Livingston Observatory (L1), and Virgo Observatory (V1) at 2024-06-15 16:07:35.333 UTC (GPS time: 1402502873.333). The candidate was found by the CWB [1], GstLAL [2], MBTA [3], and PyCBC Live [4] analysis pipelines.

S240615ea is an event of interest because its false alarm rate, as estimated by the online analysis, is 1.5e-08 Hz, or about one in 2 years. The event's properties can be found at this URL:

https://gracedb.ligo.org/superevents/S240615ea

After parameter estimation by RapidPE-RIFT [5], 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%. [6] Using the masses and spins inferred from the signal, the probability of matter outside the final compact object (HasRemnant) is <1%. [6] 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,1, an initial localization generated by BAYESTAR [7], distributed via GCN notice about 33 seconds after the candidate event time.
 * bayestar.multiorder.fits,2, an initial localization generated by BAYESTAR [7], distributed via GCN notice about 5 minutes after the candidate event time.

The preferred sky map at this time is bayestar.multiorder.fits,2. For the bayestar.multiorder.fits,2 sky map, the 90% credible region is 974 deg2. Marginalized over the whole sky, the a posteriori luminosity distance estimate is 3420 +/- 894 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/.

 [1] Klimenko et al. PRD 93, 042004 (2016) doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.93.042004
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 [2] Tsukada et al. PRD 108, 043004 (2023) doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.108.043004
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 and Ewing et al. (2023) arXiv:2305.05625
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 [3] Aubin et al. CQG 38, 095004 (2021) doi:10.1088/1361-6382/abe913
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 [4] Dal Canton et al. ApJ 923, 254 (2021) doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac2f9a
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 [5] Rose et al. (2022) arXiv:2201.05263
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 and Pankow et al. PRD 92, 023002 (2015) doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.92.023002
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 [6] Chatterjee et al. ApJ 896, 54 (2020) doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab8dbe
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 [7] Singer & Price PRD 93, 024013 (2016) doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.93.024013
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