In spite of the importance of studying the cosmic generation of heavy elements through the r-process, the detection of kilonova resulted from a merger of neutron star binaries is still a challenge task. In this paper, we show that the Visible Telescope (VT) onboard the on-going SVOM space mission is powerful for identifying kilonova candidates associated with short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) up to a distance of 600Mpc. A significant color variation, turn blue and then turn red, is revealed by calculating the light curves in both red and blue channels of VT by a linear combination of an afterglow and an associated kilonova. The maximum color variation is as high as ∼0.5−1 mag, which is far larger than the small photometry error of ∼0.2 mag of VT for a point source with a brightness of 23 mag. Up to a distance of 600Mpc, ∼1−2 kilonova candidates per year are predicted to be identified by VT.
@article{arxiv.2409.15653,
title = {Capability of Searching for Kilonova Associated with a Short Gamma-ray Burst by SVOM},
author = {J. Wang and L. P. Xin and Y. L. Qiu and L. Lan and W. J. Xie and Z. P. Jin and J. Y. Wei},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2409.15653},
year = {2024}
}