J-GEM observations of an electromagnetic counterpart to the neutron star merger GW170817

By Y. Utsumi, Masaomi Tanaka, Nozomu Tominaga, Michitoshi Yoshida, S. Barway, T. Nagayama, T. Zenko, K. Aoki, T. Fujiyoshi, H. Furusawa and 50 more. 2017

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GW170817 is the first detected gravitational wave source from a neutron star merger. We present the Japanese collaboration for gravitational-wave electro-magnetic (J-GEM) follow-up observations of SSS17a, an electromagnetic counterpart of GW170817. SSS17a shows a 2.5mag decline in the z band during the period between 1.7 and 7.7 d after the merger. Such a rapid decline is not comparable with supernovae light curves at any epoch. The color of SSS17a also evolves rapidly and becomes redder during later epochs: the z - H color has changed by approximately 2.5mag during the period between 0.7 and 7.7 d. The rapid evolutions of both the color and the optical brightness are consistent with the expected properties of a kilonova that is powered by the radioactive decay of newly synthesized r-process nuclei. Kilonova models with Lanthanide elements can reproduce the aforementioned observed properties well, which suggests that r-process nucleosynthesis beyond the second peak takes place in SSS17a. However, the absolute magnitude of SSS17a is brighter than the expected brightness of the kilonova models with an ejectamass of 0.01M(circle dot), which suggests a more intensemass ejection (similar to 0.03M(circle dot)) or possibly an additional energy source.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dc54f0858ad2b6fd13d2c3676210907e119be394

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Citations in the corpus

Kilonova from post-merger ejecta as an optical and near-infrared counterpart of GW170817 (2017, methodology): “The faint optical flux is also shown in Figure 3, where the spectral energy distribution of SSS17a is compared with simulated spectra (orange line for Ye = 0.10 − 0.40).”
A Magnetar Origin for the Kilonova Ejecta in GW170817 (2018, background): “…of only ≈40Mpc (Abbott et al. 2017c; Arcavi et al. 2017; Coulter et al. 2017; Covino et al. 2017; Díaz 2017; Drout et al. 2017; Evans et al. 2017; Hu et al. 2017; Kilpatrick et al. 2017; McCully et al. 2017; Smartt et al. 2017; Soares-Santos et al. 2017; Utsumi et al. 2017; Buckley et al. 2018).”
Binary Neutron Star Mergers: Mass Ejection, Electromagnetic Counterparts, and Nucleosynthesis (2018, background): “…ejected during and shortly after the merger (Chornock et al. 2017; Cowperthwaite et al. 2017; Drout et al. 2017; Nicholl et al. 2017; Perego et al. 2017a; Tanaka et al. 2017; Tanvir et al. 2017; Utsumi et al. 2017; Villar et al. 2017; Waxman et al. 2018; Kawaguchi et al. 2018; Metzger et al. 2018).”
Constraints on the neutron star equation of state from AT2017gfo using radiative transfer simulations (2018, background): “…al. 2017; Drout et al. 2017; Evans et al. 2017; Kasliwal et al. 2017; Tanvir et al. 2017; Pian et al. 2017a; Troja et al. 2017; Smartt et al. 2017; Utsumi et al. 2017; Valenti et al. 2017) from phases +0.467 to +25.19 d after GW170817 and at each epoch created the broadest spectral energy…”
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, unknown): “…et al. 2017; Cowperthwaite et al. 2017; Díaz et al. 2017; Drout et al. 2017; Evans et al. 2017; Hu et al. 2017; Kasliwal et al. 2017; Lipunov et al. 2017; Pian et al. 2017; Pozanenko et al. 2017; Smartt et al. 2017; Tanvir et al. 2017; Troja et al. 2017; Utsumi et al. 2017; Valenti et al. 2017b).”