The entire astrophysical world was blown away by the first-ever binary neutron star collision seen in August 2017 (called ‘GW170817’). This event, identified as a kilonova, was the first to be seen in both gravitational waves, by the LIGO and Virgo detectors, as well as the electromagnetic spectrum, from gamma rays to radio waves (and covered previously in this Oct 2017 DArchive ). Since then, there have been dozens of new gravitational wave events.
A group of researchers in DES, the DESGW team, have focused on finding more electromagnetic counterparts to these gravitational wave events. Members of the Dark Energy Survey — including University of Wisconsin–Madison physics grad student Rob Morgan and postdoc Ross Cawthon, both in Prof. Keith Bechtol’s group — look at two of the most intriguing events we have followed up with DECam since 2017.
For the full story, please visit The Dark Energy Survey post.