SOAR/Goodman Spectroscopic Assessment of Candidate Counterparts of the LIGO-Virgo Event GW190814
Creators: name: Tucker, Douglas
name: Wiesner, Matthew
name: Allam, Sahar
name: Soares-Santos, Marcelle
name: de Bom, Clecio
name: Butner, Melissa
name: Garcia, Alyssa
name: Morgan, Robert
name: Olivares, Felipe
name: Palmese, Antonella
name: Santana-Silva, Luidhy
name: Shrivastava, Anushka
name: Annis, James
name: Garcia-Bellido, Juan
name: Gill, Mandeep
name: Herner, Kenneth
name: Kilpatrick, Charles
name: Makler, Martin
name: Sherman, Nora
name: Amara, Adam
name: Lin, Huan
name: Smith, Mathew
name: Swann, Elizabeth
name: Arcavi, Iair
name: Bachmann, Tristan
name: Bechtol, Keith
name: Berlfein, Federico
name: Briceno, Cesar
name: Brout, Dillon
name: Butler, Bobby
name: Cartier, Regis
name: Casares, Jorge
name: Chen, Hsin-Yu
name: Conselice, Christopher
name: Contreras, Carlos
name: Cook, E.
name: Cooke, Jeff
name: Dage, Kristen
name: D'Andrea, Chris
name: Davis, Tamara
name: de Carvalho, Reinaldo
name: Diehl, Tom
name: Dietrich, Joerg
name: Doctor, Zoheyr
name: Drlica-Wagner, Alex
name: Drout, Maria
name: Farr, Ben
name: Finley, David
name: Fishbach, Maya
name: Foley, Ryan
name: Foerster-Buron, Francisco
name: Fosalba, Pablo
name: Friedel, Douglas
name: Frieman, Josh
name: Frohmaier, Christopher
name: Gruendl, Robert
name: Hartley, Will
name: Hiramatsu, Daichi
name: Holz, Daniel
name: Howell, Andy
name: Kawash, Adam
name: Kessler, Richard
name: Kuropatkin, Nikolay
name: Lahav, Ofer
name: Lundgren, Andrew
name: Lundquist, Michael
name: Malik, Umang
name: Mann, Andrew
name: Marriner, John
name: Marshall, Jennifer
name: Martinez-Vazquez, Clara
name: McCully, Curtis
name: Menanteau, Felipe
name: Meza, Nico
name: Narayan, Gautham
name: Neilsen, Eric
name: Nicolaou, Constantina
name: Nichol, Bob
name: Paz-Chinchon, Francisco
name: Pereira, Maria
name: Pineda, Jonathan
name: Points, Sean
name: Quirola-Vasquez, Jonathan
name: Rembold, Sandro
name: Rest, Armin
name: Rodriguez, Osmar
name: Romer, Kathy
name: Sako, Masao
name: Salim, Samir
name: Scolnic, Daniel
name: Smith, J. Allyn
name: Strader, Jay
name: Sullivan, Mark
name: Swanson, Molly
name: Thomas, Daniel
name: Valenti, Stefano
name: Varga, Tamas Norbert
name: Walker, Alistair
name: Weller, Jochen
name: Wood, Mackenna
name: Yanny, Brian
name: Zenteno, Alfredo
name: Aguena, Michel
name: Andrade-Oliveira, Felipe
name: Bertin, Emmanuel
name: Brooks, David
name: Burke, David
name: Rosell, Aurelio Carnero
name: Kind, Matias Carrasco
name: Carretero, Jorge
name: Costanzi, Matteo
name: da Costa, Luiz
name: De Vicente, Juan
name: Desai, Shantanu
name: Everett, Spencer
name: Ferrero, Ismael
name: Flaugher, Brenna
name: Gaztanaga, Enrique
name: Gerdes, David
name: Gruen, Daniel
name: Gschwend, Julia
name: Gutierrez, Gaston
name: Hinton, Samuel
name: Hollowood, Devon L.
name: Honscheid, Klaus
name: James, David
name: Kuehn, Kyler
name: Lima, Marcos
name: Maia, Marcio
name: Miquel, Ramon
name: Ogando, Ricardo
name: Pieres, Adriano
name: Malagon, Andres Plazas
name: Rodriguez-Monroy, Martin
name: Sanchez, Eusebio
name: Scarpine, Vic
name: Schubnell, Michael
name: Serrano, Santiago
name: Sevilla-Noarbe, Ignacio
name: Suchyta, Eric
name: Tarle, Gregory
name: To, Chun-Hao
name: Zhang, Yuanyuan
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2021
Subjects: subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: On 2019 August 14 at 21:10:39 UTC, the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration (LVC) detected a possible neutron star-black hole merger (NSBH), the first ever identified. An extensive search for an optical counterpart of this event, designated GW190814, was undertaken using the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) on the 4m Victor M. Blanco Telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. Target of Opportunity interrupts were issued on 8 separate nights to observe 11 candidates using the 4.1m Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope's Goodman High Throughput Spectrograph in order to assess whether any of these transients was likely to be an optical counterpart of the possible NSBH merger. Here, we describe the process of observing with SOAR, the analysis of our spectra, our spectroscopic typing methodology, and our resultant conclusion that none of the candidates corresponded to the gravitational wave merger event but were all instead other transients. Finally, we describe the lessons learned from this effort. Application of these lessons will be critical for a successful community spectroscopic follow-up program for LVC observing run 4 (O4) and beyond.
description: 32 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication by ApJ