Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL LETTERS
Volume 848, Issue 2, Pages -Publisher
IOP Publishing Ltd
DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/aa8fc7
Keywords
binaries: close; catalogs; gravitational waves; stars: neutron; surveys
Categories
Funding
- NSF [AST-1411763, AST-1714498, DGE 1144152, PHY-1707954, AST-1518052]
- NASA [NNX15AE50G, NNX16AC22G]
- National Science Foundation
- Kavli Foundation
- Danish National Research Foundation
- Niels Bohr International Academy
- DARK Cosmology Centre
- Gordon AMP
- Betty Moore Foundation
- Heising-Simons Foundation
- UCSC
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- David and Lucile Packard Foundation
- European Research Council [ERC-StG-335936]
- Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation [GBMF5076]
- DOE (USA)
- NSF (USA)
- MISE (Spain)
- STFC (UK)
- HEFCE (UK)
- NCSA (UIUC)
- KICP (U. Chicago)
- CCAPP (Ohio State)
- MIFPA (Texas AM)
- MINECO (Spain)
- DFG (Germany)
- CNPQ (Brazil)
- FAPERJ (Brazil)
- FINEP (Brazil)
- Argonne Lab
- UC Santa Cruz
- University of Cambridge
- CIEMAT-Madrid
- University of Chicago
- University College London
- DES-Brazil Consortium
- University of Edinburgh
- ETH Zurich
- Fermilab
- University of Illinois
- ICE (IEEC-CSIC)
- IFAE Barcelona
- Lawrence Berkeley Lab
- LMU Munchen
- Excellence Cluster Universe
- University of Michigan
- NOAO
- University of Nottingham
- Ohio State University
- University of Pennsylvania
- University of Portsmouth
- SLAC National Lab
- Stanford University
- University of Sussex
- Texas AM University
- Gemini Observatory [GS-2017B-Q-8, GS-2017B-DD-4]
- STFC [ST/N001087/1, ST/L006529/1, ST/P000525/1, ST/L000652/1, ST/M001334/1, ST/N000668/1, ST/I000976/1, ST/M003574/1, ST/H001581/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/N000668/1, ST/N000927/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [1720756] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [1720756] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- Division Of Physics
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [1125897] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
Ask authors/readers for more resources
We present UV, optical, and near-infrared (NIR) photometry of the first electromagnetic counterpart to a gravitational wave source from Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)/Virgo, the binary neutron star merger GW170817. Our data set extends from the discovery of the optical counterpart at 0.47-18.5 days post-merger, and includes observations with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), Gemini-South/ FLAMINGOS-2 (GS/F2), and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The spectral energy distribution (SED) inferred from this photometry at 0.6 days is well described by a blackbody model with T approximate to 8300 K, a radius of R approximate to 4.5 x 10(14) cm (corresponding to an expansion velocity of v approximate to 0.3c), and a bolometric luminosity of L-bol approximate to 5 x 10(41) erg s(-1). At 1.5 days we find a multi-component SED across the optical and NIR, and subsequently we observe rapid fading in the UV and blue optical bands and significant reddening of the optical/ NIR colors. Modeling the entire data set, we find that models with heating from radioactive decay of Ni-56, or those with only a single component of opacity from r-process elements, fail to capture the rapid optical decline and red optical/NIR colors. Instead, models with two components consistent with lanthanide-poor and lanthanide-rich ejecta provide a good fit to the data; the resulting blue component has M-ej(blue) approximate to 0.01 M-circle dot and v(ej)(blue) approximate to 0.3c, and the red component has M-cj(red) approximate to 0.04 M-circle dot and v(cj)(red) approximate to 0.1 c. These ejecta masses are broadly consistent with the estimated r-process production rate required to explain the Milky Way r-process abundances, providing the first evidence that binary neutron star (BNS) mergers can be a dominant site of r-process enrichment.
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