LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA S250211be
GCN Circular 39277
Subject
LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA S250211be: Identification of a GW compact binary merger candidate
Date
2025-02-11T04:56:55Z (4 months ago)
From
Hisaaki Shinkai at Osaka Institute of Technology <hisaaki.shinkai@oit.ac.jp>
Via
Web form
The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration, and the KAGRA Collaboration report:
We identified the compact binary merger candidate S250211be during real-time processing of data from LIGO Hanford Observatory (H1), LIGO Livingston Observatory (L1), and Virgo Observatory (V1) at 2025-02-11 04:35:43.152 UTC (GPS time: 1423283761.152). The candidate was found by the CWB BBH [1], GstLAL [2], and MBTA [3] analysis pipelines.
S250211be is an event of interest because its false alarm rate, as estimated by the online analysis, is 1.8e-08 Hz, or about one in 1 year, 9 months. The event's properties can be found at this URL:
https://gracedb.ligo.org/superevents/S250211be
After parameter estimation by RapidPE-RIFT [4], 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%. [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 <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 [6], distributed via GCN notice about 32 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 1530 deg2. Marginalized over the whole sky, the a posteriori luminosity distance estimate is 3638 +/- 1204 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] T. Mishra et al. PRD 105, 083018 (2022) doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.105.083018
[2] Tsukada et al. PRD 108, 043004 (2023) doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.108.043004 and Ewing et al. (2023) arXiv:2305.05625
[3] Aubin et al. CQG 38, 095004 (2021) doi:10.1088/1361-6382/abe913
[4] Rose et al. (2022) arXiv:2201.05263 and Pankow et al. PRD 92, 023002 (2015) doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.92.023002
[5] Chatterjee et al. ApJ 896, 54 (2020) doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ab8dbe
[6] Singer & Price PRD 93, 024013 (2016) doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.93.024013
GCN Circular 39292
Subject
LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA S250211be: Updated Sky localization
Date
2025-02-11T23:06:19Z (4 months ago)
From
Sylvia Biscoveanu at Northwestern CIERA <sylvia.biscoveanu@ligo.org>
Via
Web form
The LIGO Scientific Collaboration, the Virgo Collaboration, and the KAGRA Collaboration report:
We have conducted further analysis of the LIGO Hanford Observatory (H1), LIGO Livingston Observatory (L1), and Virgo Observatory (V1) data around the time of the compact binary merger (CBC) candidate S250211be (GCN Circular 39277). Parameter estimation has been performed using Bilby [1] and a new sky map, Bilby.multiorder.fits,0, distributed via GCN Notice, is available for retrieval from the GraceDB event page:
https://gracedb.ligo.org/superevents/S250211be
For the Bilby.multiorder.fits,0 sky map, the 90% credible region is well fit by an ellipse with an area of 94 deg2 described by the following DS9 region (right ascension, declination, semi-major axis, semi-minor axis, position angle of the semi-minor axis):
icrs; ellipse(11h45m, +25d11m, 8.14d, 3.67d, 84.71d)
Marginalized over the whole sky, the a posteriori luminosity distance estimate is 3337 +/- 1194 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] Ashton et al. ApJS 241, 27 (2019) doi:10.3847/1538-4365/ab06fc and Morisaki et al. (2023) arXiv:2307.13380