GRANDMA observations of ZTF/Fink transients during summer 2021

V. Aivazyan, M. Almualla, S. Antier, A. Baransky, K. Barynova, S. Basa, F. Bayard, S. Beradze, D. Berezin, M. Blazek, D. Boutigny, D. Boust, E. Broens, O. Burkhonov, A. Cailleau, N. Christensen, D. Cejudo, A. Coleiro, M. W. Coughlin, D. DatashviliT. Dietrich, F. Dolon, J. G. Ducoin, P. A. Duverne, G. Marchal-Duval, C. Galdies, L. Granier, V. Godunova, P. Gokuldass, H. B. Eggenstein, M. Freeberg, P. Hello, R. Inasaridze, E. E.O. Ishida, P. Jaquiery, D. A. Kann, G. Kapanadze, S. Karpov, R. W. Kiendrebeogo, A. Klotz, R. Kneip, N. Kochiashvili, W. Kou, F. Kugel, C. Lachaud, S. Leonini, A. Leroy, N. Leroy, A. Le Van Su, D. Marchais, M. Masek, T. Midavaine, A. Moller, D. Morris, R. Natsvlishvili, F. Navarete, K. Noysena, S. Nissanke, K. Noonan, N. B. Orange, J. Peloton, A. Popowicz, T. Pradier, M. Prouza, G. Raaijmakers, Y. Rajabov, M. Richmond, Ya Romanyuk, L. Rousselot, T. Sadibekova, M. Serrau, O. Sokoliuk, X. Song, A. Simon, C. Stachie, A. Taylor, Y. Tillayev, D. Turpin, M. Vardosanidze, J. Vlieghe, I. Tosta E Melo, X. F. Wang, J. Zhu

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present our follow-up observations with GRANDMA of transient sources revealed by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF). Over a period of six months,all ZTF alerts were examined in real time by a dedicated science module implemented in the Fink broker,which will be used in filtering of transients discovered by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. In this article,we present three selection methods to identify kilonova candidates. Out of more than 35 million alerts,a hundred sources have passed our selection criteria. Six were then followed-up by GRANDMA (by both professional and amateur astronomers). The majority were finally classified either as asteroids or as supernovae events. We mobilized 37 telescopes,bringing together a large sample of images,taken under various conditions and quality. To complement the orphan kilonova candidates,we included three additional supernovae alerts to conduct further observations during summer 2021. We demonstrate the importance of the amateur astronomer community that contributed images for scientific analyses of new sources discovered in a magnitude range r′ = 17 - 19 mag. We based our rapid kilonova classification on the decay rate of the optical source that should exceed 0.3 mag d-1. GRANDMA's follow-up determined the fading rate within 1.5 ± 1.2 d post-discovery,without waiting for further observations from ZTF. No confirmed kilonovae were discovered during our observing campaign. This work will be continued in the coming months in the view of preparing for kilonova searches in the next gravitational-wave observing run O4.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)6007-6022
Number of pages16
JournalMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume515
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 1 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
SA and CL acknowledge the financial support of the Programme National Hautes Energies (PNHE). SA acknowledges the financial support of CNES. SA is grateful for financial support from the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) through the VIDI (PI: Nissanke). SA dedicates her contribution to Rayan Ouram, who is a source of inspiration for bravity and humanity for GRANDMA. DT acknowledges the financial support of CNES post-doctoral program. UBAI acknowledges support from the Ministry of Innov ati ve De velopment through projects FA-Atech-2018-392 and VA-FA-F-2-010. RI acknowledges Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation (SRNSF) grant No - RF/18-1193. TAR O T has been built with the support of the Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers, CNRS, France. MP, SK, and MM are supported by European Structural and Investment Fund and the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (Projects CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16 013/0001403, CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/18 046/0016007 and CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/15 003/0000437). The FRAM telescope is also supported by the Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (projects LM2015046, LM2018105, LTT17006). NBO and DM acknowledge financial support from NASA MUREP MIRO award 80NSSC21M0001, NASA EPSCoR award 80NSSC19M0060, and NSF EiR award 1901296. PG acknowledges financial support from NSF EiR award 1901296. DAK acknowledges support from Spanish National Research Project RTI2018-098104-J-I00 (GRBPhot) XW is supported by the National Science Foundation of China (NSFC grants 12033003 and 11633002), the Scholar Program of Beijing Academy of Science and Technology (DZ:BS202002), and the Tencent Xplorer Prize. The work of FN is supported by NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The GRANDMA consortium thank the amateur participants to the kilonova-catcher program. The kilonova-catcher program is supported by the IdEx Universite de Paris, ANR-18-IDEX-0001. This research made use of the cross- match service provided by CDS, Strasbourg. MC acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation with grant numbers PHY-2010970 and OAC-2117997. GR acknowledges financial support from the Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (NWO) through the Projectruimte and VIDI grants (PI: Nissanke). Thanks to the National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand (Public Organization), based on observations made with the Thai Robotic Telescope under program ID TRTC08D 005 and TRTC09A 002. S. Leonini thanks M. Conti, P. Rosi, and L. M. Tinjaca Ramirez. SA thanks Etienne Bertrand and le 'Club des Cepheides' for their observations of ZTF21abxkven.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 The Author(s) Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society.

Keywords

  • gravitational waves
  • methods: data analysis
  • neutron star mergers

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