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Evaluating KAGRA upgrade scenarios for multimessenger observations of binary neutron stars

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2026-07-14 v1 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Instrumentation and Detectors

Abstract

Binary neutron star mergers are key targets for multimessenger astronomy, motivating future upgrades of gravitational-wave detectors. For KAGRA, both broadband sensitivity improvements that increase the binary neutron star detection range, and high-frequency optimizations targeting neutron-star physics are under consideration. We present a computationally efficient framework to evaluate the multimessenger performance of detector upgrades by combining Fisher-matrix estimates of localization area and localization volume with detector duty factors and binary neutron star merger rates. We apply this framework to proposed KAGRA upgrade scenarios within the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA network. For identical sources, the high-frequency upgrade improves sky localization by about 20% compared with the broadband option. However, when detection rates are taken into account, the broadband upgrade yields a larger number of well-localized events. Despite its shorter binary neutron star range than the other detectors, the inclusion of KAGRA increases the number of events localized within 10310^3 Mpc3^3 volume by about 60%. These results provide a quantitative framework for evaluating future detector upgrades from the perspective of multimessenger observations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2607.12769,
  title  = {Evaluating KAGRA upgrade scenarios for multimessenger observations of binary neutron stars},
  author = {Yuta Michimura and Soichiro Morisaki and Kenta Hotokezaka and Masaomi Tanaka},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2607.12769},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

14 pages, 5 figures