Prospects for kilonova signals in the gravitational-wave era

Understand

The binary neutron star merger gravitational-wave signal GW170817 was followed by three electromagnetic counterparts, including a kilonova arising from the radioactivity of freshly synthesized $r$-process elements in ejecta from the merger.

• Finding kilonovae after gravitational-wave triggers is crucial for (i) the search for further counterparts, such as the afterglow, (ii) probing the diversity of kilonovae and their dependence on the system's inclination angle, and (iii) building a sample for multi-messenger cosmology.
• During the third observing run of the gravitational-wave interferometer network, no kilonova counterpart was found.
• We aim to predict the expected population of detectable kilonova signals for the upcoming O4 and O5 observing runs of the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA instruments.