Prospects for Observing and Localizing Gravitational-Wave Transients with Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA

Document #:

LIGO-P1200087-v58

Document type:

P - Publications

Abstract:

The most up to date information about LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing runs is available at https://observing.docs.ligo.org/plan/

An updated observing timeline is available in https://dcc.ligo.org/LIGO-G2002127/public

We present possible observing scenarios for the Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA gravitational-wave detectors over the next decade, with the intention of providing information to the astronomy community to facilitate planning for multi-messenger astronomy with gravitational waves. We estimate the sensitivity of the network to transient gravitational-wave signals, and study the capability of the network to determine the sky location of the source. We report our findings for gravitational-wave transients, with particular focus on gravitational-wave signals from the inspiral of binary neutron star systems, which are the most promising targets for multi-messenger astronomy. The ability to localize the sources of the detected signals depends on the geographical distribution of the detectors and their relative sensitivity, and 90% credible regions can be as large as thousands of square degrees when only two sensitive detectors are operational. Determining the sky position of a significant fraction of detected signals to areas of 5–20 square degrees requires at least three detectors of sensitivity within a factor of ~2 of each other and with a broad frequency bandwidth. When all detectors, including KAGRA and the third LIGO detector in India, reach design sensitivity, a significant fraction of gravitational-wave signals will be localized to a few square degrees by gravitational-wave observations alone.

Files in Document:

• Observing Scenarios Document (ObservingScenarios.pdf, 3.3 MB)

Topics:

• Astrophysics / Multi-messenger
• Commissioning
• GW Bursts
• Compact Binaries

Author Groups:

• LVK

Keywords:

observing-scenario

Notes and Changes:

Updated the numbers in Table 5 based on fixes/changes to the simulations. Also added some authors.

This is the updated version submitted to the arXiv.

An updated observing timeline is available in https://dcc.ligo.org/LIGO-G2002127/public

Related Documents:

• LIGO-T2000012-v1: Noise curves used for Simulations in the update of the Observing Scenarios Paper
• LIGO-G1500622: Advanced LIGO Sensitivity Plots, H1
• LIGO-G1401390: Advanced LIGO Sensitivity Plots, L1

Referenced by:

• LIGO-G1500514-v2: Electromagnetic Follow-up program: Updating the Observing Scenario
• LIGO-P1400232-v8: Parameter estimation for binary neutron-star coalescences with realistic noise during the Advanced LIGO era
• LIGO-G1800831-v1: Speculations on the future of the LIGO detectors
• LIGO-G1901531-v3: Current O3 Schedule
• LIGO-T2000012-v2: Noise curves used for Simulations in the update of the Observing Scenarios Paper
• LIGO-G2002127-v26: Observing Scenario timeline graphic, post-O3

Publication Information:

Published in Living Reviews in Relativity, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s41114-020-00026-9