Swift-BAT GUANO follow-up of gravitational-wave triggers in the Third LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA observing run

Aiello, L., Boumerdassi, A., Creed, R., D'Emilio, V., Dooley, K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1636-0233, Ejlli, A., Fairhurst, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8480-1961, Gottel, A. S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6215-4641, Griffiths, W., Grote, H. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0797-3943, Hannam, M. D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5571-325X, Higginbotham, S., James, A. L., Javed, W. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-1471-7890, Kinnear, M., Klinger, T., Kokeyama, K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2896-1992, MacLeod, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1395-8694, Norman, M., North, C., Patra, A., Pearce, T., Quigley, C., Raymond, V. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0066-0095, Relton, P., Riley, H. K., Schutz, B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9487-6983, Schwartz, E., Skliris, V., Sutton, P. J. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1614-3922, Tsang, T. T. L. and Willetts, K. 2025. Swift-BAT GUANO follow-up of gravitational-wave triggers in the Third LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA observing run. The Astrophysical Journal 980 (2) , 207. 10.3847/1538-4357/ad9749

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Abstract

We present results from a search for X-ray/gamma-ray counterparts of gravitational-wave (GW) candidates from the third observing run (O3) of the LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA network using the Swift Burst Alert Telescope (Swift-BAT). The search includes 636 GW candidates received with low latency, 86 of which have been confirmed by the offline analysis and included in the third cumulative Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalogs (GWTC-3). Targeted searches were carried out on the entire GW sample using the maximum-likelihood Non-imaging Transient Reconstruction and Temporal Search pipeline on the BAT data made available via the GUANO infrastructure. We do not detect any significant electromagnetic emission that is temporally and spatially coincident with any of the GW candidates. We report flux upper limits in the 15–350 keV band as a function of sky position for all the catalog candidates. For GW candidates where the Swift-BAT false alarm rate is less than 10−3 Hz, we compute the GW–BAT joint false alarm rate. Finally, the derived Swift-BAT upper limits are used to infer constraints on the putative electromagnetic emission associated with binary black hole mergers.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Physics and Astronomy
Additional Information:	For the full list of authors, please refer to the article webpage - https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad9749
Publisher:	American Astronomical Society
ISSN:	1538-4357
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	17 December 2025
Date of Acceptance:	24 November 2024
Last Modified:	17 Dec 2025 14:16
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/183322

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