Orateur
Description
Next generation gravitational wave (GW) interferometers such as the Einstein Telescope (ET) will explore a significantly larger volume of the Universe, detecting up to 10$^{5}$ binary neutron star system mergers (BNS) per year beyond the Local Universe. Identifying the faint optical-NIR electromagnetic (EM) counterparts of these GW signals within vast sky localization regions, among a huge number of contaminants, will be highly challenging. Spectroscopy, the definitive tool to identify and characterise EM counterparts, is likely to become the bottleneck of GW MM science. New observational strategies will be necessary and they have to be prepared well in advance of ET operations.
I will present the latest results of the simulations I carried out within the Division 4 of the ET Observational Science Board and the Time Domain Working group of the Wide-field Spectroscopic Telescope (WST) science team to assess the impact of next generation Integral Field and Multi-Object Spectroscopy (IFS and MOS) on the detection, identification and characterization of EM counterparts of ET BNS. I will discuss possible observing strategies, provide estimates of the number of galaxies within the GW error volume, and outline key observational challenges together with the potential mitigation strategies.
