Insight-HXMT observations of the first binary neutron star merger GW170817
Abstract
Finding the electromagnetic (EM) counterpart of binary compact star merger, especially the binary neutron star (BNS) merger, is critically important for gravitational wave (GW) astronomy, cosmology and fundamental physics. On Aug. 17, 2017, Advanced LIGO and \textit{Fermi}/GBM independently triggered the first BNS merger, GW170817, and its high energy EM counterpart, GRB 170817A, respectively, resulting in a global observation campaign covering gamma-ray, X-ray, UV, optical, IR, radio as well as neutrinos. The High Energy X-ray telescope (HE) onboard \textit{Insight}-HXMT (Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope) is the unique high-energy gamma-ray telescope that monitored the entire GW localization area and especially the optical counterpart (SSS17a/AT2017gfo) with very large collection area (1000 cm) and microsecond time resolution in 0.2-5 MeV. In addition, \textit{Insight}-HXMT quickly implemented a Target of Opportunity (ToO) observation to scan the GW localization area for potential X-ray emission from the GW source. Although it did not detect any significant high energy (0.2-5 MeV) radiation from GW170817, its observation helped to confirm the unexpected weak and soft nature of GRB 170817A. Meanwhile, \textit{Insight}-HXMT/HE provides one of the most stringent constraints (~10 to 10 erg/cm/s) for both GRB170817A and any other possible precursor or extended emissions in 0.2-5 MeV, which help us to better understand the properties of EM radiation from this BNS merger. Therefore the observation of \textit{Insight}-HXMT constitutes an important chapter in the full context of multi-wavelength and multi-messenger observation of this historical GW event.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1710.06065,
title = {Insight-HXMT observations of the first binary neutron star merger GW170817},
author = {TiPei Li and ShaoLin Xiong and ShuangNan Zhang and FangJun Lu and LiMing Song and XueLei Cao and Zhi Chang and Gang Chen and Li Chen and TianXiang Chen and Yong Chen and YiBao Chen and YuPeng Chen and Wei Cui and WeiWei Cui and JingKang Deng and YongWei Dong and YuanYuan Du and MinXue Fu and GuanHua Gao and He Gao and Min Gao and MingYu Ge and YuDong Gu and Ju Guan and ChengCheng Guo and DaWei Han and Wei Hu and Yue Huang and Jia Huo and ShuMei Jia and LuHua Jiang and WeiChun Jiang and Jing Jin and YongJie Jin and Bing Li and ChengKui Li and Gang Li and MaoShun Li and Wei Li and Xian Li and XiaoBo Li and XuFang Li and YanGuo Li and ZiJian Li and ZhengWei Li and XiaoHua Liang and JinYuan Liao and CongZhan Liu and GuoQing Liu and HongWei Liu and ShaoZhen Liu and XiaoJing Liu and Yuan Liu and YiNong Liu and Bo Lu and XueFeng Lu and Tao Luo and Xiang Ma and Bin Meng and Yi Nang and JianYin Nie and Ge Ou and JinLu Qu and Na Sai and Liang Sun and Yin Tan and Lian Tao and WenHui Tao and YouLi Tuo and GuoFeng Wang and HuanYu Wang and Juan Wang and WenShuai Wang and YuSa Wang and XiangYang Wen and BoBing Wu and Mei Wu and GuangCheng Xiao and He Xu and YuPeng Xu and LinLi Yan and JiaWei Yang and Sheng Yang and YanJi Yang and AiMei Zhang and ChunLei Zhang and ChengMo Zhang and Fan Zhang and HongMei Zhang and Juan Zhang and Qiang Zhang and Shu Zhang and Tong Zhang and Wei Zhang and WanChang Zhang and WenZhao Zhang and Yi Zhang and Yue Zhang and YiFei Zhang and YongJie Zhang and Zhao Zhang and ZiLiang Zhang and HaiSheng Zhao and JianLing Zhao and XiaoFan Zhao and ShiJie Zheng and Yue Zhu and YuXuan Zhu and ChangLin Zou},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.06065},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
accepted by Science China - Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy. Planned to publish on Oct 17, but postponed due to a problem on pdf file