The Electromagnetic Counterpart of the Binary Neutron Star Merger LIGO/Virgo GW170817. VI. Radio Constraints on a Relativistic Jet and Predictions for Late-time Emission from the Kilonova Ejecta

By K. Alexander, E. Berger, W. Fong, P. G. Williams, C. Guidorzi, Raffaella Margutti, B. Metzger, James Annis, P. Blanchard, D. Brout and 13 more. 2017

290 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present Very Large Array (VLA) and Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio observations of GW170817, the first Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)/Virgo gravitational wave (GW) event from a binary neutron star merger and the first GW event with an electromagnetic (EM) counterpart. Our data include the first observations following the discovery of the optical transient at both the centimeter (13.7 hr post-merger) and millimeter (2.41 days post-merger) bands. We detect faint emission at 6 GHz at 19.47 and 39.23 days after the merger, but not in an earlier observation at 2.46 days. We do not detect cm/mm emission at the position of the optical counterpart at frequencies of 10–97.5 GHz at times ranging from 0.6 to 30 days post-merger, ruling out an on-axis short gamma-ray burst (SGRB) for energies ≳ 10 48 erg. For fiducial SGRB parameters, our limits require an observer viewer angle of ≳20°. The radio and X-ray data can be jointly explained as the afterglow emission from an SGRB with a jet energy of ∼ 10 49 – 10 50 erg that exploded in a uniform density environment with n ∼ 10 − 4 – 10 − 2 cm−3, viewed at an angle of ∼20°–40° from the jet axis. Using the results of our light curve and spectral modeling, in conjunction with the inference of the circumbinary density, we predict the emergence of late-time radio emission from the deceleration of the kilonova (KN) ejecta on a timescale of ∼5–10 years that will remain detectable for decades with next-generation radio facilities, making GW170817 a compelling target for long-term radio monitoring.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atmospheric Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/9a2851cbabd56ad34fe1f0640f7d2aab5159d528

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. B. Metzger
2. Bing Zhang
3. L. Hernquist
4. P. Hopkins
5. E. Berger
6. Michela Mapelli
7. Volker Springel
8. N. Giacobbo

In Atmospheric Science

1. B. Metzger
2. Bernard F. Schutz
3. David Radice
4. E. Berger
5. P. Lasky
6. R. Somerville
7. W. Fong
8. D. Holz

Citations in the corpus

• Constraining the Maximum Mass of Neutron Stars from Multi-messenger Observations of GW170817 (2017, background): “The delayed rise of synchrotron X-ray and radio emission is consistent with the afterglow from a much more powerful relativistic jet pointed away from our line of sight (Troja et al. 2017; Hallinan et al. 2017; Margutti et al. 2017; Alexander et al. 2017; Evans et al. 2017; Haggard et al. 2017).”
• Constraints on the neutron star equation of state from AT2017gfo using radiative transfer simulations (2018, background): “…et al. 2017) led to intensive followup campaigns to show that this was an unusual and unprecedented transient emitting from the X-ray to radio (Alexander et al. 2017; Chornock et al. 2017; Cowperthwaite et al. 2017; Drout et al. 2017; Evans et al. 2017; Haggard et al. 2017; Hallinan et al.…”
• Binary Black Hole Population Properties Inferred from the First and Second Observing Runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo (2018, background): “A subsequent post-merger transient (AT 2017gfo) was observed across the electromagnetic spectrum, from radio(Alexander et al. 2017), to near-IR/optical(Chornock et al. 2017; Coulter et al. 2017; Cowperthwaite et al. 2017; Nicholl et al. 2017; Pian et al. 2017; Soares-Santos et al. 2017), to…”
• The progenitors of compact-object binaries: impact of metallicity, common envelope and natal kicks (2018, background): “…et al. 2017e; Goldstein et al. 2017; Savchenko et al. 2017; Margutti et al. 2017; Coulter et al. 2017; Soares-Santos et al. 2017; Chornock et al. 2017; Cowperthwaite et al. 2017; Nicholl et al. 2017; Pian et al. 2017; Alexander et al. 2017), marking the beginning of multi-messenger astronomy.”
• AT 2017gfo: An Anisotropic and Three-component Kilonova Counterpart of GW170817 (2017, background): “…neutron stars (BNS), but also the first GW discovery followed by a cascade of electromagnetic (EM) signals recorded by telescopes in space and all over the world, across the entire EM spectrum (Abbott et al. 2017), from gamma-rays (Abbott et al. 2017b) to radio emission (Alexander et al. 2017).”
• A Decline in the X-Ray through Radio Emission from GW170817 Continues to Support an Off-axis Structured Jet (2018, methodology): “…radio and X-ray emission were observed to rise gradually for the first ∼160 days, with a single spectral power law, fν∝ν β with β≈−0.6, spanning ∼109–1018 Hz (Alexander et al. 2017; Hallinan et al. 2017; Kim et al. 2017; D’Avanzo et al. 2018; Margutti et al. 2018; Mooley et al. 2018b; Pooley et…”
• CMB-S4 Science Case, Reference Design, and Project Plan (2019, background): “The first binary neutron star merger, GW170817, was not visible at mm-wavelengths [14], most likely due to the low density of the environment for that particular event.”
• The evolution of the X-ray afterglow emission of GW 170817 / GRB 170817A in XMM-Newton observations (2018, background): “…afterglow was detected in the X-ray and radio bands only at relatively late times (starting from ∼9 and 16 d after the GW/GRB trigger, respectively; Alexander et al. 2017; Haggard et al. 2017; Hallinan et al. 2017; Margutti et al. 2017; Troja et al. 2017a), while earlier Article published by EDP…”
• The Combined Ultraviolet, Optical, and Near-infrared Light Curves of the Kilonova Associated with the Binary Neutron Star Merger GW170817: Unified Data Set, Analytic Models, and Physical Implications (2017, methodology): “…the blue component being visible given the inclination angle of the system inferred both from a comparison of the GW waveform and the distance of the event, and from off-axis jet models of the radio and X-ray light curves (≈20°–50°; Abbott et al. 2017d; Alexander et al. 2017; Margutti et al. 2017).”
• Prospects for observing and localizing gravitational-wave transients with Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA (2013, methodology): “For low-mass CBC searches, the waveforms are well modeled, and signal consistency tests reduce the background significantly (Allen 2005; Cannon et al. 2015; Usman et al. 2016).”
• Merging black holes in young star clusters (2019, background): “…et al. 2017d; Abbott et al. 2017e; Goldstein et al. 2017; Savchenko et al. 2017; Margutti et al. 2017; Coulter et al. 2017; Soares-Santos et al. 2017; Chornock et al. 2017; Cowperthwaite et al. 2017; Nicholl et al. 2017; Pian et al. 2017; Alexander et al. 2017). c© 0000 The Authors ar X iv :1 90 1.”
• The Binary Neutron Star Event LIGO/Virgo GW170817 160 Days after Merger: Synchrotron Emission across the Electromagnetic Spectrum (2018, methodology): “3.3), i.e. jets with with non-zero Γ(θ) in higher-latitude ejecta at θ > θ j. Figure 2 shows an update of our modeling of GW170817 with top-hat jets following the same procedure as in Alexander et al. (2017); Margutti et al. (2017a); Guidorzi et al. (2017) with BOXFIT (van Eerten et al. 2012).”
• The Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array Sky Survey (VLASS). Science Case and Survey Design (2019, background): “…have been key in establishing the mass and energy of the material dynamically ejected during the merger, investigating the presence of a relativistic jet and constraining the environment of a neutron star merger for the first time (Hallinan et al. 2017; Alexander et al. 2017; Mooley et al. 2018b).”