Overview of Active or Possible External Collaboration

Name of external person(s), group, or scientific collaboration:

RLIM: Robotic Lunar Imaging Monitor
RLIM description (halfway down page)

Brief description of collaborative activity (one sentence):

Use the RLIM telescopes to obtain prompt optical images at the sky positions of GW event candidates

Contact person(s) in the LSC+Virgo collaborations:

Szabolcs Márka

External contact person(s):

Arlin Crotts

How does/would this collaborative activity benefit the LSC and Virgo?

An optical transient detected by RLIM could confirm a GW trigger as an actual astrophysical event, localize it, and provide information about the progenitor. Localizing it promptly would allow further follow-up observations by large-aperture telescopes. There are planned to be 3-5 (?) RLIM telescopes around the globe which can follow up GW event candidates whenever the Moon is not up.

Are there other individuals/groups who could provide similar benefits?

If so, what is the scientific and/or practical justification for pursuing this particular collaboration?
The RLIM telescopes have a small field of view, but Márka and Crotts have discussed the potential of dedicating a large fraction of their time to following up GW event candidates -- basically, whenever the Moon is not up. This high availability would allow numerous follow-ups, tiling to cover regions of the sky and nearby galaxies.

Are any joint proposals planned to be submitted, e.g. for funding or for telescope time?

No, this is a peer-to-peer collaboration.

Describe any paper(s) which will/might result from this collaboration

If we discover a GW signal associated with an optical transient, we will be very excited and will publish a joint detection paper. We probably won't publish anything if we don't detect anything, except (potentially) a methods paper.

What preliminary studies (if any) have been done or are currently being done?

None so far.

Any other comments:

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