English

Constraining the ejecta for the nonthermal emission from GW170817

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2018-08-08 v3

Abstract

We consider a simple model for the nonthermal emission from GW170817, in which a quasi-spherical ejecta is released in the merger event, with the kinetic energy distributed over the momentum as E(>γβ)(γβ)kE(>\gamma\beta)\propto(\gamma\beta)^{-k}. The ejecta drives a shock into the medium and gives rise to synchrotron radiation. Using multi-band observations we constrain that k6.7k\approx6.7; (assuming medium density of 102cm3\sim10^{-2}\rm cm^{-3} and postshock magnetic field carries a fraction 10510310^{-5}-10^{-3} of the postshock internal energy) the total kinetic energy is (0.35)×1051(0.3-5)\times10^{51}erg; the slowest ejecta velocity is (0.70.8)c\sim(0.7-0.8)c; and the fastest ejecta has a Lorentz factor of 47\sim4-7. We conclude that the sub-relativistic dynamical ejecta responsible to the kilonova cannot produce the nonthermal emission. The co-existence of the nonthermal and thermal kilonova emission implies that two corresponding ejecta are ejected at different angles.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1804.00365,
  title  = {Constraining the ejecta for the nonthermal emission from GW170817},
  author = {Yan Huang and Zhuo Li},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1804.00365},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

6 pages, 4 figures and 1 table, accepted for publication in ApJ

R2 v1 2026-06-23T01:11:01.508Z