The first direct detections of gravitational waves (GWS) by the laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory (ligo) of GW150914 and GW151226, the mergers of stellar-mass black hole (BH)…

The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) was awarded a $569,077 grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to support research related to the detection of gravitational waves and their electromagnetic counterparts. The grant, awarded under contract number 80NSSC18K1411, will fund work to help enable the simultaneous discovery of gravitational wave and electromagnetic signatures, which requires coordinated observations by ground-based and space-based observatories. This effort is intended to provide astrophysical context and validate low-significance gravitational wave signals detected by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). The grant supports UAH's expertise in astrophysics, solar-terrestrial physics, atmospheric sciences, and other fields relevant to NASA's mission. As a public research university, UAH has a history of performing federal contract and grant work for agencies like NASA, the Department of Defense, and the National Science Foundation.

The first direct detections of gravitational waves (GWS) by the laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory (ligo) of GW150914 and GW151226, the mergers of stellar-mass black hole (BH) binaries [1, 2], has brought GW astronomy into a new ERA of discovery. The search for electromagnetic (EM) counterparts to GW sources is now more important than ever before, in order to provide astrophysical context, and validate lowsignificance signals. Prior to the discovery of GW150914, most of the theoretical predictions for EM counterparts to GW sources were for compact object mergers involving a neutron star (NS; i.e. NS-NS and NS-BH). However, a candidate !-RAY counterpart that is both temporally and spatially coincident with GW150914 was detected by the fermi gammaray burst monitor (GBM) [3], and is consistent with being a low-fluence short !-RAY burst (sgrb), providing new hope for detecting EM counterparts to BH-BH mergers [4 8]. Ligo and virgo are commissioning major upgrades to reach new design sensitivities by 2019, adding the detectability of GWS from the inspiral of systems including a NS, generally believed to be the progenitors of sgrbs. The simultaneous discovery of GW and EM signatures requires dedicated and coordinated observations by large communities of both ground and space-based observatories. Existing sensitive !-RAY burst (GRB) observatories cover only ? 70% of the sky at any one time, and any increase in sky coverage by additional facilities increases both the likelihood of coincident detection, and the number of sgrbs that can be correlated with GW signals.