GCN Circular 37571

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

We identified the compact binary merger candidate S240920dw during real-time processing of data from LIGO Hanford Observatory (H1) and LIGO Livingston Observatory (L1) at 2024-09-20 12:40:24.878 UTC (GPS time: 1410871242.878). The candidate was found by the cWB [1], cWB BBH [2], GstLAL [3], MBTA [4], and PyCBC Live [5] analysis pipelines.

S240920dw is an event of interest because its false alarm rate, as estimated by the online analysis, is 9.7e-52 Hz, or about one in 1e44 years. The event's properties can be found at this URL:

https://gracedb.ligo.org/superevents/S240920dw

After parameter estimation by RapidPE-RIFT [6], the classification of the GW signal, in order of descending probability, is BBH (>99%), NSBH (<1%), BNS (<1%), or Terrestrial (<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%. [7] Using the masses and spins inferred from the signal, the probability of matter outside the final compact object (HasRemnant) is <1%. [7] Both HasNS and HasRemnant consider the support of several neutron star equations of state for maximum neutron star mass. 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 [8], distributed via GCN notice about 29 seconds after the candidate event time.
 * bayestar.multiorder.fits,1, an initial localization generated by BAYESTAR [8], 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 189 deg2. Marginalized over the whole sky, the a posteriori luminosity distance estimate is 950 +/- 211 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] T. Mishra et al. PRD 105, 083018 (2022) doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.105.083018
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 [3] 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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 [4] Aubin et al. CQG 38, 095004 (2021) doi:10.1088/1361-6382/abe913
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 [5] Dal Canton et al. ApJ 923, 254 (2021) doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac2f9a
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 [6] 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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 [7] Chatterjee et al. ApJ 896, 54 (2020) doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab8dbe
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 [8] Singer & Price PRD 93, 024013 (2016) doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.93.024013
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