Deep and rapid observations of strong-lensing galaxy clusters within the sky localisation of GW170814

Understand

We present observations of two strong-lensing galaxy clusters located within the $90$ per cent credible sky localization maps released following LIGO-Virgo's discovery of the binary black hole (BH-BH) gravitational wave (GW) source GW170814.

• Our objectives were (1) to search for candidate electromagnetic (EM) counterparts to GW170814 under the hypothesis that it was strongly-lensed, and thus more distant and less massive than inferred by LIGO-Virgo, and (2) to demonstrate the feasibility of rapid target of opportunity observations to search for faint lensed transient point sources in crowded cluster cores located within GW sky localizations.
• Commencing $20$ hours after discovery, and continuing over $12$ nights, we observed Abell 3084 ($z=0.22$) and SMACSJ0304.3$-$4401 ($z=0.46$) with GMOS on the Gemini-South telescope, and Abell 3084 with MUSE on ESO's Very Large Telescope.
• We detect no candidate EM counterparts in these data.