EARLY X-RAY AND OPTICAL AFTERGLOW OF GRAVITATIONAL WAVE BURSTS FROM MERGERS OF BINARY NEUTRON STARS

By Bing Zhang. 2012

139 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Double neutron star mergers are strong sources of gravitational waves. The upcoming advanced gravitational wave detectors are expected to make the first detection of gravitational wave bursts (GWBs) associated with these sources. Proposed electromagnetic counterparts of a GWB include a short gamma-ray burst, an optical macronova, and a long-lasting radio afterglow. Here we suggest that at least some GWBs could be followed by an early afterglow lasting for thousands of seconds, if the post-merger product is a highly magnetized, rapidly rotating, massive neutron star rather than a black hole. This afterglow is powered by dissipation of a proto-magnetar wind. The X-ray flux is estimated to be as bright as (10−8–10−7) erg s−1 cm−2. The optical flux is subject to large uncertainties but could be as bright as 17th magnitude in R band. We provide observational hints of such a scenario, and discuss the challenge and strategy to detect these signals.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1964595b12767f73d8597e8c5a5ce22e6a9b2487

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Citations in the corpus

FORMATION OF STABLE MAGNETARS FROM BINARY NEUTRON STAR MERGERS (2013, background): “…scenarios, strong electromagnetic counterparts that would be suppressed in collapsing NSs could be easily produced and observed in radio (Kiuchi et al. 2012), optical (Dall’Osso et al. 2011; Zhang 2013; Gao et al. 2013), X-rays (Rowlinson et al. 2013), and gamma-rays (Gompertz et al. 2013).”
SYSTEMATICS OF DYNAMICAL MASS EJECTION, NUCLEOSYNTHESIS, AND RADIOACTIVELY POWERED ELECTROMAGNETIC SIGNALS FROM NEUTRON-STAR MERGERS (2013, background): “…crust phenomena (Lipunov & Panchenko 1996; Vietri 1996; Li & Paczyński 1998; Hansen & Lyutikov 2001; Troja et al. 2010; Shibata et al. 2011; Nakar & Piran 2011; Tsang et al. 2012; Kyutoku et al. 2012; Zhang 2013; Gao et al. 2013; Piro 2012; Lai 2012; Palenzuela et al. 2013; Metzger & Berger 2012).”
Short-Duration Gamma-Ray Bursts (2013, background): “…magnetar as a merger remnant, which could power an isotropic counterpart with an optical/near-IR luminosity approaching those of supernovae and a typical timescale of hours to days, as well as bright X-ray emission on a timescale of hours (Gao et al. 2013; Yu, Zhang & Gao 2013; Zhang 2013) .”
The THESEUS space mission concept: science case, design and expected performances (2017, background): “Alternatively, X-ray emission may come from direct dissipation of magnetar winds (see, e.g., Zhang, 2013; Rezzolla & Kumar, 2015).”
The physics of gamma-ray bursts & relativistic jets (2014, background): “The signals include a bright early X-ray afterglow due to internal dissipation of a proto-magnetar wind (Zhang, 2013), bright broadband afterglow of a magnetar-powered ejecta (Gao et al., 2013a), as well as a merger-nova brighter than the “kilo-nova” predicted for a black hole central engine (Yu et…”
BRIGHT “MERGER-NOVA” FROM THE REMNANT OF A NEUTRON STAR BINARY MERGER: A SIGNATURE OF A NEWLY BORN, MASSIVE, MILLISECOND MAGNETAR (2013, methodology): “…the uncertainties of nuclear matter equation-of-state and NS mass distributions of the merger systems, it is possible that at least some NS-NS mergers would leave behind a stable (for hours to days), rapidly rotating NS (e.g. Dai et al. 2006; Fan & Xu 2006; Zhang 2013; Giacomazzo & Perna 2013).”
Optical and X-ray emission from stable millisecond magnetars formed from the merger of binary neutron stars (2013, background): “Prolonged energy injection from a magnetar remnant has also been proposed as a potential electromagnetic counterpart to the gravitational wave signal (Zhang 2013; Gao et al. 2013; Yu et al. 2013).”
A living theory catalogue for fast radio bursts (2018, background): “The presence an expected multi-wavelength afterglow was not observed (Shannon and Ravi, 2017), but arguably may not be observable (Gao and Zhang, 2017).”
FAST RADIO BURSTS FROM THE INSPIRAL OF DOUBLE NEUTRON STARS (2016, background): “Fourth, the merger of double NSs after an FRB would leave behind a rapidly rotating BH (Paczýnski 1986; Eichler et al. 1989) or a millisecond pulsar/magnetar (Dai et al. 2006; Zhang 2013).”
The birth of black holes: neutron star collapse times, gamma-ray bursts and fast radio bursts (2014, background): “A large fraction of any non-SGRB signatures of binary NS mergers that rely on a protomagnetar central engine (Gao et al. 2013; Zhang 2013) may have time-scales associated with the distribution of supramassive NS collapse times (Fig.”
THE MILLISECOND MAGNETAR CENTRAL ENGINE IN SHORT GRBs (2015, background): “…radiation even if the short GRB jet does not beam towards earth, so that some interesting observational signatures are expected to be associated with gravitational wave signals in the Advanced LIGO/Virgo era (Zhang 2013; Gao et al. 2013; Yu et al. 2013; Fan et al. 2013b; Metzger & Piro 2014).”
Fast Radio Bursts from Magnetars Born in Binary Neutron Star Mergers and Accretion Induced Collapse (2019, background): “…of binary NSs, the uncertain value of MTOV, and the amount of mass loss during the merger, a modest fraction of mergers could lead to indefinitely stable NSs (e.g., Dai et al. 2006; Metzger et al. 2008; Zhang 2013; Lasky et al. 2014; Gao et al. 2016; Piro et al. 2017; Margalit & Metzger 2019).”
A POSSIBLE CONNECTION BETWEEN FAST RADIO BURSTS AND GAMMA-RAY BURSTS (2013, background): “An internal X-ray plateau due to magnetar wind dissipation would have a near isotropic emission pattern, which could be observed without a short GRB association (Zhang 2013).”