LIGO Seminar

When two ultra-compact objects inspiral and violently merge it is
a rare cosmic event, producing fantastically "luminous" gravitational wave
emission. It is also fleeting, staying in LIGO's sensitive band only for
somewhere between tenths of a second and several tens of minutes. However,
when there is at least one neutron star, disk formation during the merger
may power a slew of potentially detectable EM counterparts such as short
gamma-ray bursts, afterglows, and kilonovae. These explosions span the full electromagnetic spectrum and are expected within seconds, hours or days of the merger event. To learn as much astrophysics as possible requires targeted observations at every stage of this process, demanding a
coordinated worldwide effort across many facilities and multiple
astronomical disciplines, all in nearly real-time. In this talk I outline
some of the major obstacles facing the multimessenger astronomy effort,
including computation, data analysis and sky localization for LIGO source
candidates, as well as disseminating this information quickly to the
astronomical community. I also report on the performance of some of these
services during Advanced LIGO's first Observing Run, and on my experience at LIGO Livingston Observatory during O1 as an LSC Fellow.

We plan to broadcast these talks using TeamSpeak. Use a sub-channel of
LIGO Lab called "LIGO Seminar", which is not password protected.