Designing an Optimal Kilonova Search using DECam for Gravitational Wave Events

Understand

We address the problem of optimally identifying all kilonovae detected via gravitational wave emission in the upcoming LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA Collaboration observing run, O4, which is expected to be sensitive to a factor of $\sim 7$ more Binary Neutron Stars alerts than previously.

• Electromagnetic follow-up of all but the brightest of these new events will require $>1$ meter telescopes, for which limited time is available.
• We present an optimized observing strategy for the Dark Energy Camera during O4.
• We base our study on simulations of gravitational wave events expected for O4 and wide-prior kilonova simulations.