Estimating the Contribution of Dynamical Ejecta in the Kilonova Associated with GW170817
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-ind...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
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American Astronomical Society
2018
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| Online Access: | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/117418 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3054-7790 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9409-5757 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3503-2032 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8196-9267 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1983-3187 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0219-9706 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2700-0767 |
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| author | Aggarwal, Nancy Buikema, Aaron Donovan, Frederick J Eisenstein, Robert Alan Essick, Reed Clasey Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel Fritschel, Peter K Gras, Slawomir MacInnis, Myron E Martynov, Denis Mason, Kenneth R Matichard, Fabrice Mavalvala, Nergis Miller, John Vitale, Salvatore Weiss, Rainer Yu, Haocun |
| author2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics |
| author_facet | Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics Aggarwal, Nancy Buikema, Aaron Donovan, Frederick J Eisenstein, Robert Alan Essick, Reed Clasey Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel Fritschel, Peter K Gras, Slawomir MacInnis, Myron E Martynov, Denis Mason, Kenneth R Matichard, Fabrice Mavalvala, Nergis Miller, John Vitale, Salvatore Weiss, Rainer Yu, Haocun |
| author_sort | Aggarwal, Nancy |
| collection | MIT |
| 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 M ej = 10 -3 - 10 -2 M ⊙ for various equations of state, assuming that the neutron stars are rotating slowly. In addition, we use our estimates of the dynamical ejecta mass and the neutron star merger rates inferred from GW170817 to constrain the contribution of events like this to the r-process element abundance in the Galaxy when ejecta mass from post-merger winds is neglected. We find that if ≳10% of the matter dynamically ejected from binary neutron star (BNS) mergers is converted to r-process elements, GW170817-like BNS mergers could fully account for the amount of r-process material observed in the Milky Way. |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:04:53Z |
| format | Article |
| id | mit-1721.1/117418 |
| institution | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-23T15:04:53Z |
| publishDate | 2018 |
| publisher | American Astronomical Society |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | mit-1721.1/1174182022-10-14T19:32:01Z Estimating the Contribution of Dynamical Ejecta in the Kilonova Associated with GW170817 Aggarwal, Nancy Buikema, Aaron Donovan, Frederick J Eisenstein, Robert Alan Essick, Reed Clasey Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel Fritschel, Peter K Gras, Slawomir MacInnis, Myron E Martynov, Denis Mason, Kenneth R Matichard, Fabrice Mavalvala, Nergis Miller, John Vitale, Salvatore Weiss, Rainer Yu, Haocun Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Laboratory for Nuclear Science MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research Aggarwal, Neerja Buikema, Aaron Donovan, Frederick J Eisenstein, Robert Alan Essick, Reed Clasey Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel Fritschel, Peter K Gras, Slawomir MacInnis, Myron E Martynov, Denis Mason, Kenneth R Matichard, Fabrice Mavalvala, Nergis Miller, John Vitale, Salvatore Weiss, Rainer Yu, Haocun 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 M ej = 10 -3 - 10 -2 M ⊙ for various equations of state, assuming that the neutron stars are rotating slowly. In addition, we use our estimates of the dynamical ejecta mass and the neutron star merger rates inferred from GW170817 to constrain the contribution of events like this to the r-process element abundance in the Galaxy when ejecta mass from post-merger winds is neglected. We find that if ≳10% of the matter dynamically ejected from binary neutron star (BNS) mergers is converted to r-process elements, GW170817-like BNS mergers could fully account for the amount of r-process material observed in the Milky Way. National Science Foundation (U.S.) Science and Technology Facilities Council (Great Britain) Max Planck Society 2018-08-20T17:16:02Z 2018-08-20T17:16:02Z 2017-12 2017-10 2018-04-23T19:50:43Z Article http://purl.org/eprint/type/JournalArticle 2041-8213 http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/117418 Abbott, B. P., R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, C. Adams, T. Adams, et al. “Estimating the Contribution of Dynamical Ejecta in the Kilonova Associated with GW170817.” The Astrophysical Journal 850, no. 2 (December 1, 2017): L39. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3054-7790 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9409-5757 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3503-2032 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8196-9267 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1983-3187 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0219-9706 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2700-0767 http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/AA9478 The Astrophysical Journal Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ application/pdf American Astronomical Society IOP Publishing |
| spellingShingle | Aggarwal, Nancy Buikema, Aaron Donovan, Frederick J Eisenstein, Robert Alan Essick, Reed Clasey Fernandez Galiana, Alvaro-Miguel Fritschel, Peter K Gras, Slawomir MacInnis, Myron E Martynov, Denis Mason, Kenneth R Matichard, Fabrice Mavalvala, Nergis Miller, John Vitale, Salvatore Weiss, Rainer Yu, Haocun Estimating the Contribution of Dynamical Ejecta in the Kilonova Associated with GW170817 |
| title | Estimating the Contribution of Dynamical Ejecta in the Kilonova Associated with GW170817 |
| title_full | Estimating the Contribution of Dynamical Ejecta in the Kilonova Associated with GW170817 |
| title_fullStr | Estimating the Contribution of Dynamical Ejecta in the Kilonova Associated with GW170817 |
| title_full_unstemmed | Estimating the Contribution of Dynamical Ejecta in the Kilonova Associated with GW170817 |
| title_short | Estimating the Contribution of Dynamical Ejecta in the Kilonova Associated with GW170817 |
| title_sort | estimating the contribution of dynamical ejecta in the kilonova associated with gw170817 |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/117418 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3054-7790 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9409-5757 https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3503-2032 https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8196-9267 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1983-3187 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0219-9706 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2700-0767 |
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