We introduce a value-added full-sky catalogue of galaxies , named as Galaxy List for the Advanced Detector Era , or GLADE .
The purpose of this catalogue is to ( i ) help identifications of host candidates for gravitational-wave events , ( ii ) support target selections for electromagnetic follow-up observations of gravitational-wave candidates , ( iii ) provide input data on the matter distribution of the local universe for astrophysical or cosmological simulations , and ( iv ) help identifications of host candidates for poorly localised electromagnetic transients , such as gamma-ray bursts observed with the InterPlanetary Network .
Both being potential hosts of astrophysical sources of gravitational waves , GLADE includes inactive and active galaxies as well .
GLADE was constructed by cross-matching and combining data from five separate ( but not independent ) astronomical catalogues : GWGC , 2MPZ , 2MASS XSC , HyperLEDA and SDSS-DR12Q .
GLADE is complete up to d _ { L } = 37 ^ { +3 } _ { -4 } \mathrm { Mpc } in terms of the cumulative B -band luminosity of galaxies within luminosity distance d _ { L } , and contains all of the brightest galaxies giving half of the total B -band luminosity up to d _ { L } = 91 \mathrm { Mpc } .
As B -band luminosity is expected to be a tracer of binary neutron star mergers ( currently the prime targets of joint GW+EM detections ) , our completeness measures can be used as estimations of completeness for containing all binary neutron star merger hosts in the local universe .