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Early spectra of the gravitational wave source GW170817: Evolution of a neutron star merger

Shappee, B. J. and Simon, J. D. and Drout, M. R. and Piro, A. L. and Morrell, N. and Prieto, J. L. and Kasen, D. and Holoien, T. W.-S. and Kollmeier, J. A. and Kelson, D. D. and Coulter, D. A. and Foley, R. J. and Kilpatrick, C. D. and Siebert, M. R. and Madore, B. F. and Murguia-Berthier, A. and Pan, Y.-C. and Prochaska, J. X. and Ramirez-Ruiz, E. and Rest, A. and Adams, C. and Alatalo, K. and Bañados, E. and Baughman, J. and Bernstein, R. A. and Bitsakis, T. and Boutsia, K. and Bravo, J. R. and Di Mille, F. and Higgs, C. R. and Ji, A. P. and Maravelias, G. and Marshall, J. L. and Placco, V. M. and Prieto, G. and Wan, Z. (2017) Early spectra of the gravitational wave source GW170817: Evolution of a neutron star merger. Science, 358 (6370). pp. 1574-1578. ISSN 0036-8075. doi:10.1126/science.aaq0186. https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20171017-111646188

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Abstract

On 17 August 2017, Swope Supernova Survey 2017a (SSS17a) was discovered as the optical counterpart of the binary neutron star gravitational wave event GW170817. We report time-series spectroscopy of SSS17a from 11.75 hours until 8.5 days after merger. Over the first hour of observations the ejecta rapidly expanded and cooled. Applying blackbody fits to the spectra, we measure the photosphere cooling from 11,000^(+3400)_(-900) K to 9300^(+300)_(-300) K, and determine a photospheric velocity of roughly 30% of the speed of light. The spectra of SSS17a begin displaying broad features after 1.46 days, and evolve qualitatively over each subsequent day, with distinct blue (early-time) and red (late-time) components. The late-time component is consistent with theoretical models of r-process-enriched neutron star ejecta, whereas the blue component requires high velocity, lanthanide-free material.


Item Type:Article
Related URLs:
URLURL TypeDescription
https://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.aaq0186DOIArticle
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/358/6370/1574PublisherArticle
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/science.aaq0186/DC1PublisherSupplementary Materials
https://arxiv.org/abs/1710.05432arXivDiscussion Paper
ORCID:
AuthorORCID
Shappee, B. J.0000-0003-4631-1149
Drout, M. R.0000-0001-7081-0082
Piro, A. L.0000-0001-6806-0673
Morrell, N.0000-0003-2535-3091
Prieto, J. L.0000-0003-1072-2712
Holoien, T. W.-S.0000-0001-9206-3460
Kollmeier, J. A.0000-0001-9852-1610
Kilpatrick, C. D.0000-0002-5740-7747
Madore, B. F.0000-0002-1576-1676
Prochaska, J. X.0000-0002-7738-6875
Ramirez-Ruiz, E.0000-0003-2558-3102
Alatalo, K.0000-0002-4261-2326
Bañados, E.0000-0002-2931-7824
Bitsakis, T.0000-0001-5787-8242
Placco, V. M.0000-0003-4479-1265
Additional Information:© 2017 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received for publication September 22, 2017. Accepted for publication October 11, 2017. We thank John Mulchaey (Carnegie Observatories director), Leopoldo Infante (Las Campanas Observatory director), and the entire Las Campanas staff for their dedication, professionalism, and excitement, which were critical for obtaining the observations used in this study. B.J.S., M.R.D., K.A.A., and A.P.J. were supported by NASA through Hubble Fellowships awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS 5-26555. B.J.S. and E.B. were supported by Carnegie-Princeton Fellowships. M.R.D. was supported by a Carnegie-Dunlap Fellowship and acknowledges support from the Dunlap Institute at the University of Toronto. T.W.-S.H. was supported by a Carnegie Fellowship. Support for J.L.P. was in part provided by FONDECYT through the grant 1151445 and by the Ministry of Economy, Development, and Tourism’s Millennium Science Initiative through grant IC120009, awarded to The Millennium Institute of Astrophysics. DK is supported in part by a Department of Energy (DOE) Early Career award DE-SC0008067, a DOE Office of Nuclear Physics award DE-SC0017616, and a DOE SciDAC award DE-SC0018297, and by the Director, Office of Energy Research, Office of High Energy and Nuclear Physics, Divisions of Nuclear Physics, of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No.DE-AC02-05CH11231. V.M.P. acknowledges partial support for this work from grant PHY 14- 30152 from the Physics Frontier Center/JINA Center for the Evolution of the Elements (JINA-CEE), awarded by the US National Science Foundation. The UCSC group was supported in part by NSF grant AST–1518052, the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, generous donations from many individuals through a UCSC Giving Day grant, and from fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation (R.J.F), the David and Lucile Packard Foundation (R.J.F. and E.R.) and the Niels Bohr Professorship from the DNRF (E.R.). T.B. acknowledges support from the CONACyT Research Fellowships program. G.M. acknowledges support from CONICYT, Programa de Astronomía/PCI, FONDO ALMA 2014, Proyecto No 31140024. A.M.B. acknowledges support from a UCMEXUS-CONACYT Doctoral Fellowship. C.A. was supported by Caltech through a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) with funding from the Associates SURF Endowment. This paper includes data gathered with the 6.5 m Magellan Telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. Part of this work is based on a comparison to observations of GRB130603B that were obtained from the ESO Science Archive Facility under request number vmplacco308387. We thank Antonino Cucchiara for sending us the spectrum of GRB130603B and our thoughts go out to all those in the Virgin Islands impacted by the recent series of hurricanes. We thank Jennifer van Saders for useful suggestions. We thank the University of Copenhagen, DARK Cosmology Centre, and the Niels Bohr International Academy for hosting D.A.C., R.J.F., A.M.B., E.R., and M.R.S. during a portion of this work. R.J.F., A.M.B., and E.R. were participating in the Kavli Summer Program in Astrophysics, “Astrophysics with gravitational wave detections.” This program was supported by the Kavli Foundation, Danish National Research Foundation, the Niels Bohr International Academy, and the Dark Cosmology Centre. This research has made use of the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database (NED), which is operated by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The data presented in this work and code used to perform the analysis are available at ftp://ftp.obs.carnegiescience.edu/pub/SSS17a. Calibrated rest-wavelength spectra are also made available at WISeREP (https://wiserep.weizmann.ac.il/).
Group:Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC)
Funders:
Funding AgencyGrant Number
NASA Hubble FellowshipUNSPECIFIED
NASANAS 5-26555
Carnegie-Princeton FellowshipUNSPECIFIED
Carnegie-Dunlap FellowshipUNSPECIFIED
University of TorontoUNSPECIFIED
Carnegie Institution of WashingtonUNSPECIFIED
Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico (FONDECYT)1151445
Iniciativa Científica Milenio del Ministerio de Economía, Fomento y TurismoIC120009
Department of Energy (DOE)DE-SC0008067
Department of Energy (DOE)DE-SC0017616
Department of Energy (DOE)DE-SC0018297
Department of Energy (DOE)DE-AC02-05CH11231
NSFPHY-1430152
NSFAST-1518052
Gordon and Betty Moore FoundationUNSPECIFIED
Heising-Simons FoundationUNSPECIFIED
Alfred P. Sloan FoundationUNSPECIFIED
David and Lucile Packard FoundationUNSPECIFIED
Danish National Research FoundationUNSPECIFIED
Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología (CONACYT)31140024
University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS)UNSPECIFIED
Caltech Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF)UNSPECIFIED
Associates of the California Institute of TechnologyUNSPECIFIED
Kavli FoundationUNSPECIFIED
Niels Bohr International AcademyUNSPECIFIED
DARK Cosmology CentreUNSPECIFIED
NASA/JPL/CaltechUNSPECIFIED
Issue or Number:6370
DOI:10.1126/science.aaq0186
Record Number:CaltechAUTHORS:20171017-111646188
Persistent URL:https://resolver.caltech.edu/CaltechAUTHORS:20171017-111646188
Official Citation:Early spectra of the gravitational wave source GW170817: Evolution of a neutron star merger. BY B. J. SHAPPEE, J. D. SIMON, M. R. DROUT, A. L. PIRO, N. MORRELL, J. L. PRIETO, D. KASEN, T. W.-S. HOLOIEN, J. A. KOLLMEIER, D. D. KELSON, D. A. COULTER, R. J. FOLEY, C. D. KILPATRICK, M. R. SIEBERT, B. F. MADORE, A. MURGUIA-BERTHIER, Y.-C. PAN, J. X. PROCHASKA, E. RAMIREZ-RUIZ, A. REST, C. ADAMS, K. ALATALO, E. BAÑADOS, J. BAUGHMAN, R. A. BERNSTEIN, T. BITSAKIS, K. BOUTSIA, J. R. BRAVO, F. DI MILLE, C. R. HIGGS, A. P. JI, G. MARAVELIAS, J. L. MARSHALL, V. M. PLACCO, G. PRIETO, Z. WAN. SCIENCE 22 DEC 2017 : 1574-1578
Usage Policy:No commercial reproduction, distribution, display or performance rights in this work are provided.
ID Code:82418
Collection:CaltechAUTHORS
Deposited By: George Porter
Deposited On:17 Oct 2017 21:14
Last Modified:15 Nov 2021 19:50

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