Prospects for Observing and Localizing Gravitational-Wave Transients with Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
Abstract
We present a possible observing scenario for the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
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 determine the expected 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 considered
the most promising 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 deg2 to 20 deg2 will require at least three detectors of sensitivity
within a factor of 2 of each other and with a broad frequency bandwidth. Should the third
LIGO detector be relocated to India as expected, a significant fraction of gravitational-wave
signals will be localized to a few square degrees by gravitational-wave observations alone.
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