Difference: GCNCIRCULAR20738 ( vs. 1)

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo report:

The pycbc CBC analysis (Usman et al. 2016, CQG 33, 215004) identified candidate G275404 during real-time processing of data from LIGO Hanford Observatory (H1) and LIGO Livingston Observatory (L1) at 2017-02-25 18:30:21.374 UTC (GPS time:1172082639.374).

G275404 is an event of interest because its false alarm rate, as determined by the online analysis, is 1.89e-07 Hz or about one in 2 months, passing our stated alert threshold of ~1/month. The event's properties can be found at this URL:

https://gracedb.ligo.org/events/G275404

Based on preliminary matched-filter estimates of the masses and spins, if astrophysical, there is a 100% chance that the less massive companion in the binary has a mass less than 3 Msun. Based on the tidal disruption condition and disk mass formula of Foucart (PRD 86, 124007), using an implementation based on Pannarale & Ohme (ApJL 791, 7), we estimate that there is a 90% chance that the system ejected enough neutron-rich material to power an electromagnetic transient.

One sky map with directional distance information (e.g., Singer et al. 2016, ApJL 829, 15) is available at this time and can be retrieved from the GraceDB event page: bayestar.fits.gz, an initial localization generated by the BAYESTAR pipeline. The probability is concentrated in two sections of an annulus. The 50% credible region spans about 460 deg2 and the 90% region about 2100 deg2. The luminosity distance is estimated to be 280 +/- 80 Mpc (mean +/- standard deviation). This is the preferred sky map at this time.

Updates on our analysis of this event will be sent as they become available.

-- ThomasKupfer - 27 Feb 2017