TY  - JOUR
A1  - Hosseinzadeh, Griffin
A1  - Cowperthwaite, Philip S.
A1  - Gomez, Sebastian
A1  - Villar, Victoria Ashley
A1  - Nicholl, Matt
A1  - Margutti, Raffaella
A1  - Berger, Edo
A1  - Chornock, Ryan
A1  - Paterson, Kerry
A1  - Fong, Wen-fai
A1  - Savchenko, Volodymyr
A1  - Short, Phil
A1  - Alexander, Kate D.
A1  - Blanchard, Peter K.
A1  - Braga, Joao
A1  - Calkins, Michael L.
A1  - Cartier, Regis
A1  - Coppejans, Deanne L.
A1  - Eftekhari, Tarraneh
A1  - Laskar, Tanmoy
A1  - Ly, Chun
A1  - Patton, Locke
A1  - Pelisoli, Ingrid Domingos
A1  - Reichart, Daniel E.
A1  - Terreran, Giacomo
A1  - Williams, Peter K. G.
T1  - Follow-up of the Neutron Star Bearing Gravitational-wave Candidate Events S190425z and S190426c with MMT and SOAR
JF  - The astrophysical journal : an international review of spectroscopy and astronomical physics ; Part 2, Letters
N2  - On 2019 April 25.346 and 26.640 UT the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and Virgo gravitational-wave (GW) observatory announced the detection of the first candidate events in Observing Run 3 that contained at least one neutron star (NS). S190425z is a likely binary neutron star (BNS) merger at d(L) = 156 +/- 41 Mpc, while S190426c is possibly the first NS-black hole (BH) merger ever detected, at d(L) = 377 +/- 100 Mpc, although with marginal statistical significance. Here we report our optical follow-up observations for both events using the MMT 6.5 m telescope, as well as our spectroscopic follow-up of candidate counterparts (which turned out to be unrelated) with the 4.1 m SOAR telescope. We compare to publicly reported searches, explore the overall areal coverage and depth, and evaluate those in relation to the optical/near-infrared (NIR) kilonova emission from the BNS merger GW170817, to theoretical kilonova models, and to short gamma-ray burst (SGRB) afterglows. We find that for a GW170817-like kilonova, the partial volume covered spans up to about 40% for S190425z and 60% for S190426c. For an on-axis jet typical of SGRBs, the search effective volume is larger, but such a configuration is expected in at most a few percent of mergers. We further find that wide-field gamma-ray and X-ray limits rule out luminous on-axis SGRBs, for a large fraction of the localization regions, although these searches are not sufficiently deep in the context of the gamma-ray emission from GW170817 or off-axis SGRB afterglows. The results indicate that some optical follow-up searches are sufficiently deep for counterpart identification to about 300 Mpc, but that localizations better than 1000 deg(2) are likely essential.
KW  - binaries: close
KW  - gravitational waves
KW  - methods: observational
KW  - stars: black holes
KW  - stars: neutron
Y1  - 2019
U6  - https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ab271c
SN  - 2041-8205
SN  - 2041-8213
VL  - 880
IS  - 1
PB  - IOP Publ. Ltd.
CY  - Bristol
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Bersier, David
A1  - Fruchter, Andrew S.
A1  - Strolger, Louis-Gregory
A1  - Gorosabel, Javier
A1  - Levan, Andrew
A1  - Burud, Ingunn
A1  - Rhoads, James E.
A1  - Becker, Andrew C.
A1  - Cassan, Andrew C.
A1  - Chornock, Ryan
A1  - Covino, Stefano
A1  - De Jong, Roelof S.
A1  - Dominis, Dijana
A1  - Filippenko, Alexei V.
A1  - Hjorth, Jens
A1  - Holmberg, Johan
A1  - Malesani, Daniele
A1  - Mobasher, Bahram
A1  - Olsen, Kurt A. G.
A1  - Stefanon, Mauro
A1  - Castro Cerón, José María C.
A1  - Fynbo, Johan P. U.
A1  - Holland, Stephen T.
A1  - Kouveliotou, Chryssa
A1  - Pedersen, Hans-Georg
A1  - Tanvir, Nieal R.
A1  - Woosley, S. E.
T1  - Evidence for a supernova associated with the X-ray flash 020903
N2  - We present ground-based and Hubble Space Telescope optical observations of the X-ray flash ( XRF) 020903, covering 300 days. The afterglow showed a very rapid rise in the first day, followed by a relatively slow decay in the next few days. There was a clear bump in the light curve after similar to 25 days, accompanied by a drastic change in the spectral energy distribution. The light curve and the spectral energy distribution are naturally interpreted as describing the emergence and subsequent decay of a supernova ( SN), similar to SN 1998bw. At peak luminosity, the SN is estimated to be 0.8 +/- 0.1 mag fainter than SN 1998bw. This argues in favor of the existence of a SN associated with this XRF. A spectrum obtained 35 days after the burst shows emission lines from the host galaxy. We use this spectrum to put an upper limit on the oxygen abundance of the host at [O/H] <= 0.6 dex. We also discuss a possible trend between the softness of several bursts and the early behavior of the optical afterglow, in the sense that XRFs and X-ray-rich gamma- ray bursts ( GRBs) seem to have a plateau phase or even a rising light curve. This can be naturally explained in models in which XRFs are similar to GRBs but are seen off the jet axis.
Y1  - 2006
UR  - http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1086/502640
SN  - 0004-637X
ER  -