Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Tavani, M.
• Pittori, C.
• Verrecchia, F.
• Bulgarelli, A.
• Giuliani, A.
• Donnarumma, I.
• Argan, A.
• Trois, A.
• Lucarelli, F.
• Marisaldi, M.
• Monte, E. Del
• Evangelista, Y.
• Fioretti, V.
• Zoli, A.
• Piano, G.
• Munar-Adrover, P.
• Antonelli, L. A.
• Barbiellini, G.
• Caraveo, P.
• Cattaneo, P. W.
• Costa, E.
• Feroci, M.
• Ferrari, A.
• Longo, F.
• Mereghetti, S.
• Minervini, G.
• Morselli, A.
• Pacciani, L.
• Pellizzoni, A.
• Picozza, P.
• Pilia, M.
• Rappoldi, A.
• Sabatini, S.
• Vercellone, S.
• Vittorini, V.
• Giommi, P.
• Colafrancesco, S.
• Cardillo, M.
• Galli, M.
• Fuschino, F.

Titel

AGILE OBSERVATIONS OF THE GRAVITATIONAL-WAVE EVENT GW150914

Ist Teil von

• Astrophysical journal. Letters, 2016-07, Vol.825 (1), p.L4-L4

Ort / Verlag

United States: The American Astronomical Society

Erscheinungsjahr

2016

Quelle

EZB Electronic Journals Library

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• ABSTRACT We report the results of an extensive search through the AGILE data for a gamma-ray counterpart to the LIGO gravitational-wave (GW) event GW150914. Currently in spinning mode, AGILE has the potential of cover 80% of the sky with its gamma-ray instrument, more than 100 times a day. It turns out that AGILE came within a minute of the event time of observing the accessible GW150914 localization region. Interestingly, the gamma-ray detector exposed ∼65% of this region during the 100 s time intervals centered at −100 and +300 s from the event time. We determine a 2 flux upper limit in the band 50 MeV-10 GeV, UL = 1.9 × 10−8 erg cm−2 s−1, obtained ∼300 s after the event. The timing of this measurement is the fastest ever obtained for GW150914, and significantly constrains the electromagnetic emission of a possible high-energy counterpart. We also carried out a search for a gamma-ray precursor and delayed emission over five timescales ranging from minutes to days: in particular, we obtained an optimal exposure during the interval −150/−30 s. In all these observations, we do not detect a significant signal associated with GW150914. We do not reveal the weak transient source reported by Fermi-GBM 0.4 s after the event time. However, even though a gamma-ray counterpart of the GW150914 event was not detected, the prospects for future AGILE observations of GW sources are decidedly promising.