A dark energy camera search for missing supergiants in the LMC after the advanced LIGO gravitational-wave event GW150914

The collapse of a stellar core is expected to produce gravitational waves (GWs), neutrinos, and in most cases a luminous supernova. Sometimes, however, the optical event could be significantly less luminous than a supernova and a direct collapse to a black hole, where the star just disappears, is possible. The GW event GW150914 was detected by the LIGO Virgo Collaboration via a burst analysis that gave localization contours enclosing the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Shortly thereafter, we used DECam to observe 102 deg2 of the localization area, including 38 deg2 on the LMC for a missing supergiant search. We construct a complete catalog of LMC luminous red supergiants, the best candidates to undergo invisible core collapse, and collected catalogs of other candidates: less luminous red supergiants, yellow supergiants, blue supergiants, luminous blue variable stars, and Wolf–Rayet stars. Of the objects in the imaging region, all are recovered in the images. The timescale for stellar disappearance is set by the free-fall time, which is a function of the stellar radius. Our observations at 4 and 13 days after the event result in a search sensitive to objects of up to about 200 solar radii. We conclude that it is unlikely that GW150914 was caused by the core collapse of a relatively compact supergiant in the LMC, consistent with the LIGO Collaboration analyses of the gravitational waveform as best interpreted as a high mass binary black hole merger. We discuss how to generalize this search for future very nearby core-collapse candidates

A dark energy camera search for missing supergiants in the LMC after the advanced LIGO gravitational-wave event GW150914

The collapse of a stellar core is expected to produce gravitational waves (GWs), neutrinos, and in most cases a luminous supernova. Sometimes, however, the optical event could be significantly less luminous than a supernova and a direct collapse to a black hole, where the star just disappears, is possible. The GW event GW150914 was detected by the LIGO Virgo Collaboration via a burst analysis that gave localization contours enclosing the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). Shortly thereafter, we used DECam to observe 102 deg2 of the localization area, including 38 deg2 on the LMC for a missing supergiant search. We construct a complete catalog of LMC luminous red supergiants, the best candidates to undergo invisible core collapse, and collected catalogs of other candidates: less luminous red supergiants, yellow supergiants, blue supergiants, luminous blue variable stars, and Wolf–Rayet stars. Of the objects in the imaging region, all are recovered in the images. The timescale for stellar disappearance is set by the free-fall time, which is a function of the stellar radius. Our observations at 4 and 13 days after the event result in a search sensitive to objects of up to about 200 solar radii. We conclude that it is unlikely that GW150914 was caused by the core collapse of a relatively compact supergiant in the LMC, consistent with the LIGO Collaboration analyses of the gravitational waveform as best interpreted as a high mass binary black hole merger. We discuss how to generalize this search for future very nearby core-collapse candidates

Dark energy survey operations: years 4 and 5

The Dark Energy Survey (DES) is an operating optical survey aimed at understanding the accelerating expansion of the universe using four complementary methods: weak gravitational lensing, galaxy cluster counts, baryon acoustic oscillations, and Type Ia supernovae. To perform the 5000 sq-degree wide field and 30 sq-degree supernova surveys, the DES Collaboration built the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), a 3 square-degree, 570-Megapixel CCD camera that was installed at the prime focus of the Blanco 4-meter telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO). DES has completed its third observing season out of a nominal five. This paper describes DES "Year 4" (Y4) and "Year 5" (Y5), the survey strategy, an outline of the survey operations procedures, the efficiency of operations and the causes of lost observing time. It provides details about the quality of these two-season's data, a summary of the overall status, and plans for the final survey season.U.S. Department of Energy; U.S. National Science Foundation; Ministry of Science and Education of Spain; Science and Technology Facilities Council of the United Kingdom; Higher Education Funding Council for England; National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics at the University of Chicago; Center for Cosmology and Astro-Particle Physics at the Ohio State University; Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy at Texas AM University; Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos, Fundacao Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo a Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico; Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia e Inovacao; Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft; Dark Energy Survey; National Science Foundation [AST-1138766, AST-1536171]; MINECO [AYA2015-71825, ESP2015-66861, FPA2015-68048, SEV-2016-0588, SEV-2016-0597, MDM-2015-0509]; European Union; CERCA program of the Generalitat de Catalunya; European Research Council under the European Union's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/2007-2013) including ERC grant [240672, 291329, 306478]; Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (CAASTRO) [CE110001020]; Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Ciencia e Tecnologia (INCT) e-Universe (CNPq) [465376/2014-2]; U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics [DE-AC02-07CH11359]; Argonne National Laboratory; University of California at Santa Cruz; University of Cambridge; Centro de Investigaciones Energeticas; Medioambientales y Tecnologicas-Madrid; University of Chicago; University College London; DES-Brazil Consortium; University of Edinburgh; Eidgenossische Technische Hochschule (ETH) Zurich; Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory; University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Institut de Ciencies de l'Espai (IEEC/CSIC); Institut de Fisica d'Altes Energies; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Ludwig-Maximilians Universitat Munchen; associated Excellence Cluster Universe; University of Michigan; National Optical Astronomy Observatory; University of Nottingham; Ohio State University; University of Pennsylvania; University of Portsmouth; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; Stanford University; University of Sussex; OzDES Membership Consortium; Texas AM UniversityThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]