Electromagnetic follow-up of gravitational wave candidates: perspectives and first results of the Italian project GRAWITA

Detecting an electromagnetic (EM) emission associated with a gravitational wave (GW) signal is one of the main goal of the newly born gw astronomy. Merger of neutron stars and/or black holes and core-collapse of massive stars are expected to cause rapid transient EM signals like gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), core-collapse supernovae, soft-gamma ray repeaters and pulsar glitches.

The Advanced LIGO detectors on September 14th, for the first time, detected a binary black hole merger (GW150914) for which a detectable electromagnetic counterpart is little expected. This detection showed that EM follow-up facilities are able to react quickly to GW signals covering radio, optical, near-infrared, X-ray, and gamma-ray wavelengths with ground- and space-based over the entire gravitational sky localization even if they have to deal with large position uncertainties up to hundreds square degrees.
Therefore wide-field cameras and rapid follow-up observations are crucial to characterize the EM candidates and the first EM counterpart identification.
In this talk I want to present the activities we are currently currying on to optimize the response of the GRAWITA network of facilities to expected GW triggers and our first results. The GRAWITA project is representing an efficient operational framework capable of fast reaction on large error box triggers and direct identification and characterization of the candidates.
All the activities we will describe are expect to provide means and opportunities to the Italian and European astronomical communities to have a leading role in the GW astronomy and Time Domain Astronomy fields.