{
  "id": "1602.04735",
  "version": "v1",
  "published": "2016-02-15T16:56:59.000Z",
  "updated": "2016-02-15T16:56:59.000Z",
  "title": "Electromagnetic Counterparts to Black Hole Mergers Detected by LIGO",
  "authors": [
    "Abraham Loeb"
  ],
  "comment": "3 pages, submitted to ApJL",
  "categories": [
    "astro-ph.HE",
    "astro-ph.CO",
    "astro-ph.SR",
    "gr-qc"
  ],
  "abstract": "Mergers of stellar-mass black holes (BHs), such as GW150914 observed by LIGO, are not expected to have electromagnetic counterparts. However, the Fermi GBM detector identified of a gamma-ray transient 0.4 s after the gravitational wave (GW) signal GW150914 with consistent sky localization. I show that the two signals might be related if the BH binary detected by LIGO originated from two clumps in a dumbbell configuration that formed when the core of a rapidly rotating massive star collapsed. In that case, the BH binary merger was followed by a gamma-ray burst (GRB) from a jet that originated in the accretion flow around the remnant BH. A future detection of a GRB afterglow could be used to determine the redshift and precise localization of the source. A population of standard GW sirens with GRB redshifts would provide a new approach for precise measurements of cosmological distances as a function of redshift.",
  "revisions": [
    {
      "version": "v1",
      "updated": "2016-02-15T16:56:59.000Z"
    }
  ],
  "analyses": {
    "keywords": [
      "black hole mergers",
      "electromagnetic counterparts",
      "rotating massive star",
      "consistent sky localization",
      "fermi gbm detector"
    ],
    "publication": {
      "doi": "10.3847/2041-8205/819/2/L21"
    },
    "note": {
      "typesetting": "TeX",
      "pages": 3,
      "language": "en",
      "license": "arXiv",
      "status": "editable",
      "inspire": 1421618
    }
  }
}