Optical Follow-up of Gravitational-wave Events with Las Cumbres Observatory

Understand

We present an implementation of the Gehrels et al.

• (2016) galaxy-targeted strategy for gravitational-wave (GW) follow-up using the Las Cumbres Observatory global network of telescopes.
• We use the Galaxy List for the Advanced Detector Era (GLADE) galaxy catalog, which we show is complete (with respect to a Schechter function) out to ~300 Mpc for galaxies brighter than the median Schechter function galaxy luminosity.
• We use a prioritization algorithm to select the galaxies with the highest chance of containing the counterpart given their luminosity, their position, and their distance relative to a GW localization, and in which we are most likely to detect a counterpart given its expected brightness compared to the limiting magnitude of our telescopes.