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LOOC UP: Guiding the search for optical transients with interferometer data

LOOC UP (Locating and Observing Optical Counterparts to Unmodeled Pulses in gravitational waves) is a project that is currently being developed by the LSC and Virgo with international collaborators. The purpose of the project is to search for burst gravitational wave sources through collaboration between the LIGO-Virgo interferometer network and optical telescopes. Such a collaborative approach would hopefully be able to provide electromagnetic confirmation of a gravitational wave event. The project is being designed to analyse coincident event triggers from the LIGO-Virgo interferometer network in close to real-time. Probable source sky positions will be modelled from the data and handed over to a network of optical telescopes by LUMIN, a software package that is currently under development. LUMIN will manage new triggers as they arrive, analysing the sky regions identified and determining an imaging schedule based on which telescopes can view the sky region and at which times. Once one of the telescopes (such as SkyMapper) has received one of the identified sky regions, it will image the targeted locations looking for any optical transients that could be associated with the gravitational wave detection. The pipeline will initially run with human oversight but will eventually be made fully automated. The LOOC UP project represents a step towards the future integration of gravitational wave astronomy with the wider astronomical community. The development of the methods used in this project will be of particular importance for the Advanced LIGO/Virgo era when regular gravitational wave detections are expected.

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