GCN Circular 41500
Subject
LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA S250818k: 3 GHz MeerKAT observations of AT2025ulz
Date
2025-08-22T16:13:06Z (3 days ago)
From
Aishwarya L Thakur at INAF-IAPS, Rome <aishth@outlook.com>
Via
Web form
G. Bruni [1], L. Piro [1], G. Gianfagna [1] and A. L. Thakur [1] report:
We observed the field of AT2025ulz (announced by Stein et al., GCN 41414), which is proposed as a candidate counterpart for the subthreshold GW event S250818k (LVK Collaboration, GCNs 41437, 41440) with the MeerKAT radio telescope under the program SCI-20241101-GB-01 (PI: Bruni) at 3 GHz (S4 band) starting on Aug 21, 16:30 UT (at 3.6 days post-trigger) for a total of 2 hours (1.5 hours on source). J1939-6342 was used for flux scale calibration, and J1609+2641 for phase referencing. Data was processed with the SARAO Science Data Processor (SDP) continuum pipeline. The image RMS was 6.4 uJy/beam.
We detect radio emission at the position of the transient, and we measure an integrated flux density of 77 +/- 16 uJy (corresponding to a ~ 10-sigma detection). However, given the northern declination of the field, the angular resolution is insufficient to disentangle any potential contamination from the host with this epoch of observation alone.
Further MeerKAT observations are planned.
The MeerKAT telescope is operated by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, which is a facility of the National Research Foundation, an agency of the Department of Science and Innovation.
—------------------------
[1] INAF-IAPS