Optimizing optical follow-up of gravitational-wave candidates

Observations with interferometric gravitational-wave detectors result in probability sky maps that are multimodal and spread over 10-100 deg^2. We present a scheme for maximizing the probability of imaging optical counterparts to gravitational-wave transients given limited observing resources. Our framework is capable of coordinating many telescopes with different fields of view and limiting magnitudes. We present a case study comparing three different planning algorithms. We find that, with the network of telescopes that was used in the most recent joint LIGO-Virgo science run, a relatively straightforward coordinated approach doubles the detection efficiency relative to each telescope observing independently.

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