Follow Up of GW170817 and Its Electromagnetic Counterpart by Australian-Led Observing Programmes

By I. Andreoni, K. Ackley, J. Cooke, A. Acharyya, J. Allison, G. Anderson, M. Ashley, D. Baade, M. Bailes, K. Bannister and 115 more. Publications Astronomical Society of Australia, 2017

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Abstract The discovery of the first electromagnetic counterpart to a gravitational wave signal has generated follow-up observations by over 50 facilities world-wide, ushering in the new era of multi-messenger astronomy. In this paper, we present follow-up observations of the gravitational wave event GW170817 and its electromagnetic counterpart SSS17a/DLT17ck (IAU label AT2017gfo) by 14 Australian telescopes and partner observatories as part of Australian-based and Australian-led research programs. We report early- to late-time multi-wavelength observations, including optical imaging and spectroscopy, mid-infrared imaging, radio imaging, and searches for fast radio bursts. Our optical spectra reveal that the transient source emission cooled from approximately 6 400 K to 2 100 K over a 7-d period and produced no significant optical emission lines. The spectral profiles, cooling rate, and photometric light curves are consistent with the expected outburst and subsequent processes of a binary neutron star merger. Star formation in the host galaxy probably ceased at least a Gyr ago, although there is evidence for a galaxy merger. Binary pulsars with short (100 Myr) decay times are therefore unlikely progenitors, but pulsars like PSR B1534+12 with its 2.7 Gyr coalescence time could produce such a merger. The displacement (~2.2 kpc) of the binary star system from the centre of the main galaxy is not unusual for stars in the host galaxy or stars originating in the merging galaxy, and therefore any constraints on the kick velocity imparted to the progenitor are poor.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/a0651a17736b8a9d0ab6b6d60581d3c60d0f15dd

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Citations in the corpus

• 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, background): “These observations were published in multiple papers that appeared when the detection was publicly announced on 2017 October 16 (Andreoni et al. 2017; Arcavi et al. 2017; Coulter et al. 2017; Cowperthwaite et al. 2017; Díaz et al. 2017; Drout et al. 2017; Evans et al. 2017; Hu et al. 2017; Kasliwal…”
• Constraints on the neutron star equation of state from AT2017gfo using radiative transfer simulations (2018, methodology): “…(ii) primarily use only grizyJHKS AB mag photometry from sources that used image subtraction (mostly DECam and Skymapper Cowperthwaite et al. 2017; Andreoni et al. 2017), or from HST where host contamination is not important (Tanvir et al. 2017), and (iii) when this was not possible, focus on a…”