GCN Circular 36689

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

We identified the compact binary merger candidate S240618ah during real-time processing of data from LIGO Hanford Observatory (H1) and LIGO Livingston Observatory (L1) at 2024-06-18 07:16:27.151 UTC (GPS time: 1402730205.151). The candidate was found by the CWB [1], GstLAL [2], and MBTA [3] analysis pipelines.

S240618ah is an event of interest because its false alarm rate, as estimated by the online analysis, is 6.5e-08 Hz, or about one in 5 months. The event's properties can be found at this URL:

https://gracedb.ligo.org/superevents/S240618ah

After parameter estimation by RapidPE-RIFT [4], the classification of the GW signal, in order of descending probability, is BBH (96%), Terrestrial (4%), 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%. [5] Using the masses and spins inferred from the signal, the probability of matter outside the final compact object (HasRemnant) is <1%. [5] 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 4%.

Three 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 [6], distributed via GCN notice about 30 seconds after the candidate event time.
 * bayestar.multiorder.fits,1, an initial localization generated by BAYESTAR [6], distributed via GCN notice about 42 seconds after the candidate event time.
 * bayestar.multiorder.fits,2, an initial localization generated by BAYESTAR [6], 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 5360 deg2. Marginalized over the whole sky, the a posteriori luminosity distance estimate is 7841 +/- 2600 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] 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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 [5] Chatterjee et al. ApJ 896, 54 (2020) doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab8dbe
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 [6] Singer & Price PRD 93, 024013 (2016) doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.93.024013
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