Submitting Campus
Prescott
Department
Physics and Astronomy
Document Type
Article
Publication/Presentation Date
12-1-2017
Abstract/Description
The source of the gravitational-wave (GW) signal GW170817, very likely a binary neutron star merger, was also observed electromagnetically, providing the first multi-messenger observations of this type. The two-week-long electromagnetic (EM) counterpart had a signature indicative of an r-process-induced optical transient known as a kilonova. This Letter examines how the mass of the dynamical ejecta can be estimated without a direct electromagnetic observation of the kilonova, using GW measurements and a phenomenological model calibrated to numerical simulations of mergers with dynamical ejecta. Specifically, we apply the model to the binary masses inferred from the GW measurements, and use the resulting mass of the dynamical ejecta to estimate its contribution (without the effects of wind ejecta) to the corresponding kilonova light curves from various models. The distributions of dynamical ejecta mass range between ... (see paper for remainder of information).
Publication Title
The Astrophysical Journal Letters
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aa9478
Publisher
American Astronomical Society
Required Publisher’s Statement
Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Scholarly Commons Citation
Abbott, B. P., AultONeal, K., Gaudio, S., Gill, K., Gretarsson, E. M., Hughey, B., Muratore, M., Pratt, J. W., Schwalbe, S. G., Staats, K., Szczepańczyk, M. J., Zanolin, M., & al., e. (2017). Estimating the Contribution of Dynamical Ejecta in the Kilonova Associated With GW170817. The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 850(2). https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/aa9478
