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Electromagnetic Afterglows Associated with Gamma-Ray Emission Coincident with Binary Black Hole Merger Event GW150914

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2016-05-25 v4

Abstract

The Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor reported the possible detection of the gamma-ray counterpart of a binary black hole merger event, GW150914. We show that the gamma-ray emission is caused by a relativistic outflow with Lorentz factor larger than 10. Subsequently, debris outflow pushes the ambient gas to form a shock, which is responsible for the afterglow synchrotron emission. We find that the 1.4 GHz radio flux peaks at 105\sim10^5 sec after the burst trigger. If the ambient matter is dense enough with density larger than 102\sim10^{-2} cm3^{-3}, then the peak radio flux is 0.1\sim0.1 mJy, which is detectable with radio telescopes such as the Very Large Array. The optical afterglow peaks earlier than the radio, and if the ambient matter density is larger than 0.1\sim0.1 cm3^{-3}, the optical flux is detectable with large telescopes such as the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam. To reveal the currently unknown mechanisms of the outflow and its gamma-ray emission associated with the binary black hole merger event, follow-up electromagnetic observations of afterglows are important. Detection of the afterglow will localize the sky position of the gravitational wave and the gamma-ray emissions, and it will support the physical association between them.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1602.05050,
  title  = {Electromagnetic Afterglows Associated with Gamma-Ray Emission Coincident with Binary Black Hole Merger Event GW150914},
  author = {Ryo Yamazaki and Katsuaki Asano and Yutaka Ohira},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1602.05050},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

8 pages, 2 figures, Progress of Theoretical and Experimental Physics (PTEP), 2016, 051E01