Swope Supernova Survey 2017a (SSS17a), the optical counterpart to a gravitational wave source

doi:10.1126/science.aap9811

. 2017 Dec 22;358(6370):1556-1558.

doi: 10.1126/science.aap9811. Epub 2017 Oct 16.

Swope Supernova Survey 2017a (SSS17a), the optical counterpart to a gravitational wave source

D A Coulter¹, R J Foley², C D Kilpatrick², M R Drout³, A L Piro³, B J Shappee^{3

4}, M R Siebert², J D Simon³, N Ulloa⁵, D Kasen^{6

7}, B F Madore^{3

8}, A Murguia-Berthier², Y-C Pan², J X Prochaska², E Ramirez-Ruiz^{2

9}, A Rest^{10

11}, C Rojas-Bravo²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. dcoulter@ucsc.edu.
² Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
³ Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101, USA.
⁴ Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawai'i, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.
⁵ Departamento de Física y Astronomía, Universidad de La Serena, La Serena, Chile.
⁶ Nuclear Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
⁷ Departments of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
⁸ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
⁹ Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Blegdamsvej 17, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
¹⁰ Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
¹¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.

PMID: 29038368
DOI: 10.1126/science.aap9811

Swope Supernova Survey 2017a (SSS17a), the optical counterpart to a gravitational wave source

D A Coulter et al. Science. 2017.

. 2017 Dec 22;358(6370):1556-1558.

doi: 10.1126/science.aap9811. Epub 2017 Oct 16.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA. dcoulter@ucsc.edu.
² Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, USA.
³ Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, CA 91101, USA.
⁴ Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawai'i, 2680 Woodlawn Drive, Honolulu, HI 96822, USA.
⁵ Departamento de Física y Astronomía, Universidad de La Serena, La Serena, Chile.
⁶ Nuclear Science Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
⁷ Departments of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
⁸ Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, The University of Chicago, 5640 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60637, USA.
⁹ Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Blegdamsvej 17, 2100 Copenhagen, Denmark.
¹⁰ Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.
¹¹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Johns Hopkins University, 3400 North Charles Street, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA.

PMID: 29038368
DOI: 10.1126/science.aap9811

Abstract

On 17 August 2017, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo interferometer detected gravitational waves (GWs) emanating from a binary neutron star merger, GW170817. Nearly simultaneously, the Fermi and INTEGRAL (INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory) telescopes detected a gamma-ray transient, GRB 170817A. At 10.9 hours after the GW trigger, we discovered a transient and fading optical source, Swope Supernova Survey 2017a (SSS17a), coincident with GW170817. SSS17a is located in NGC 4993, an S0 galaxy at a distance of 40 megaparsecs. The precise location of GW170817 provides an opportunity to probe the nature of these cataclysmic events by combining electromagnetic and GW observations.

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Swope Supernova Survey 2017a (SSS17a), the optical counterpart to a gravitational wave source

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Swope Supernova Survey 2017a (SSS17a), the optical counterpart to a gravitational wave source

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