TITLE: GCN CIRCULAR NUMBER: 41439 SUBJECT: LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA S250818k: Pan-STARRS pre-detection limits for AT2025ulz DATE: 25/08/20 09:52:22 GMT FROM: Matt Nicholl at Queens University Belfast matt.nicholl@qub.ac.uk
M. Nicholl, D. R. Young, A. Aamer, C. R. Angus, M. D. Fulton, D. Magill, M. McCollum, T. Moore, S. Sim, J. Weston, X. Sheng (QUB), S. J. Smartt, K.W. Smith, J. Gillanders, S. Srivastav, H. Stevance, F. Stoppa, J. Tweddle (Oxford), L. Shingles (GSI/QUB), P. Ramsden (Birmingham/QUB), K. C. Chambers, M. E. Huber, A. S. B. Schultz, T. de Boer, J. Fairlamb, C. C. Lin, T. Lowe, E. Magnier, P. Minguez, G, Paek, I. A. Smith, R. J. Wainscoat (IfA, Univ. Hawaii), T.-W. Chen (NCU), A. Rest (STScI), C. Stubbs (Harvard):
We report pre-discovery limits on the source AT2025ulz, reported by Stein et al. (GCN 41414) and possibly associated with the sub-threshold gravitational wave candidate S20250818k (The LIGO-Virgo-Kagra Collaboration, GCN 41437), obtained with the Pan-STARRS telescope system (Chambers et al., 2016, ArXiv e-prints, 1612.05560). The Pan-STARRS system comprises of two 1.8m telescope units located at the summit of Haleakala on the Hawaiian island of Maui, employing an SDSS-like filter system denoted as grizy, and a broad w-filter, which is a composite of the gri-filters. In our primary NASA mission for Near-Earth Object discovery, we scan the visible night sky North of -50 degrees declination to magnitude depths m~22, weather and Moon permitting.
Examining recent data obtained during normal Pan-STARRS survey coverage (see Fulton et al. 2025, MNRAS, 542, 541) at the location of AT2025ulz, we report the following pre-discovery upper limits and time since the S20250818k trigger (t-t0)
Date t-t0 (days) Magnitude Band 60904.233 -0.82 <19.7 y 60895.314 -9.7 <21.0 i
We note that the y-band non-detection was obtained only ~0.8 days before the GW signal. This indicates that there was no bright, red transient at this position less than a day prior.
The images were processed with the Pan-STARRS pipeline. After astrometric and photometric calibration, reference images were subtracted from the target images (Magnier et al., 2020a, ApJS, 251, 3; Magnier et al., 2020b, ApJS, 251, 6; Waters et al., 2020, ApJS, 251, 4).
Further Pan-STARRS grizy imaging of this source, and coverage of the S20250818k skymap (northern banana) is underway in the i-band with PS1 and PS2 jointly.
The discoveries from this program are a byproduct of the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) NEO survey observations. Operation of the Pan-STARRS1 and Pan-STARRS2 telescopes is primarily supported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under Grant No. NNX12AR65G and Grant No. NNX14AM74G issued through the SSO Near-Earth Object Observations Program. Data are processed at Queen's University Belfast enabled through the STFC grants ST/P000312/1 and ST/T000198/1.
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