Contaminating Electromagnetic Transients in LISA Gravitational Wave Localization Volumes. I: The Intrinsic Rates

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Hauptverfasser: Yu, Weixiang, Ruan, John J., Eracleous, Michael, Runnoe, Jessie, Haggard, Daryl, Bogdanovic, Tamara, Stemo, Aaron, Szekerczes, Kaitlyn, Drake, Carolyn L., Futrowsky, Kate E., Sigurdsson, Steinn
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Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Yu, Weixiang
Ruan, John J.
Eracleous, Michael
Runnoe, Jessie
Haggard, Daryl
Bogdanovic, Tamara
Stemo, Aaron
Szekerczes, Kaitlyn
Drake, Carolyn L.
Futrowsky, Kate E.
Sigurdsson, Steinn
author_facet Yu, Weixiang
Ruan, John J.
Eracleous, Michael
Runnoe, Jessie
Haggard, Daryl
Bogdanovic, Tamara
Stemo, Aaron
Szekerczes, Kaitlyn
Drake, Carolyn L.
Futrowsky, Kate E.
Sigurdsson, Steinn
contents The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will soon detect gravitational waves (GWs) emitted by massive black hole (MBH) mergers. Some theoretical models have predicted transient electromagnetic (EM) emission from these mergers, enabling the association of LISA GW sources with their EM counterparts via telescope follow-up. However, the number of unrelated EM transients that might contaminate telescope searches for the true transient counterparts of LISA MBH mergers is unknown. We investigate the expected numbers of unrelated EM transients that will coincide with simulated LISA localization volumes of MBH mergers, as a function of the merger total mass and redshift. We find that the number of potential contaminants in LISA localization volumes drops to unity for mergers at $z \lesssim 0.8$ and at 1 hour before coalescence. After coalescence, the parameter space corresponding to a maximum of one potential contaminant expands to $z \lesssim 1.5$. In contrast, if the redshifts for all transients detected in LISA sky localization regions are not available, the number of potential contaminants increases by an average factor of $\sim100$, and never drops below unity. Overall, we expect the average number of contaminating transients in telescope follow-up of LISA MBH mergers to be non-negligible, especially without redshift information for the detected transients. We recommend that endeavors designing follow-up strategies of LISA events should focus on: (1) building large redshift catalogs for host galaxies, (2) developing robust real-time transient classification algorithms, (3) and coordinating telescope resources to obtain redshifts for candidate transient EM counterparts in a timely manner.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2502_02839
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Contaminating Electromagnetic Transients in LISA Gravitational Wave Localization Volumes. I: The Intrinsic Rates
Yu, Weixiang
Ruan, John J.
Eracleous, Michael
Runnoe, Jessie
Haggard, Daryl
Bogdanovic, Tamara
Stemo, Aaron
Szekerczes, Kaitlyn
Drake, Carolyn L.
Futrowsky, Kate E.
Sigurdsson, Steinn
Astrophysics of Galaxies
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) will soon detect gravitational waves (GWs) emitted by massive black hole (MBH) mergers. Some theoretical models have predicted transient electromagnetic (EM) emission from these mergers, enabling the association of LISA GW sources with their EM counterparts via telescope follow-up. However, the number of unrelated EM transients that might contaminate telescope searches for the true transient counterparts of LISA MBH mergers is unknown. We investigate the expected numbers of unrelated EM transients that will coincide with simulated LISA localization volumes of MBH mergers, as a function of the merger total mass and redshift. We find that the number of potential contaminants in LISA localization volumes drops to unity for mergers at $z \lesssim 0.8$ and at 1 hour before coalescence. After coalescence, the parameter space corresponding to a maximum of one potential contaminant expands to $z \lesssim 1.5$. In contrast, if the redshifts for all transients detected in LISA sky localization regions are not available, the number of potential contaminants increases by an average factor of $\sim100$, and never drops below unity. Overall, we expect the average number of contaminating transients in telescope follow-up of LISA MBH mergers to be non-negligible, especially without redshift information for the detected transients. We recommend that endeavors designing follow-up strategies of LISA events should focus on: (1) building large redshift catalogs for host galaxies, (2) developing robust real-time transient classification algorithms, (3) and coordinating telescope resources to obtain redshifts for candidate transient EM counterparts in a timely manner.
title Contaminating Electromagnetic Transients in LISA Gravitational Wave Localization Volumes. I: The Intrinsic Rates
topic Astrophysics of Galaxies
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.02839