Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Troja, E
• Piro, L
• van Eerten, H
• Wollaeger, R. T
• Im, M
• Fox, O. D
• Butler, N. R
• Cenko, S. B
• Sakamoto, T
• Fryer, C. L
• Ricci, R
• Lien, A
• Ryan, R. E., Jr
• Korobkin, O
• Lee, S.-K
• Burgess, J. M
• Lee, W. H
• Watson, A. M
• Choi, C
• Covino, S
• DAvanzo, P
• Fontes, C. J
• Gonzlez, J. Becerra
• Khandrika, H. G
• Kim, J
• Kim, S.-L
• Lee, C.-U
• Lee, H. M
• Kutyrev, A
• Lim, G
• Snchez-Ramrez, R
• Veilleux, S
• Wieringa, M. H
• Yoon, Y

Titel

The X-ray counterpart to the gravitational-wave event GW170817

Ist Teil von

• Nature (London), 2017-11, Vol.551 (7678), p.71-74

Ort / Verlag

London: Nature Publishing Group

Erscheinungsjahr

2017

Link zum Volltext

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• A long-standing paradigm in astrophysics is that collisions- or mergers-of two neutron stars form highly relativistic and collimated outflows (jets) that power Y-ray bursts of short (less than two seconds) duration. The observational support for this model, however, is only indirect. A hitherto outstanding prediction is that gravitational-wave events from such mergers should be associated with Y-ray bursts, and that a majority of these bursts should be seen off-axis, that is, they should point away from Earth. Here we report the discovery observations of the X-ray counterpart associated with the gravitational-wave event GW170817. Although the electromagnetic counterpart at optical and infrared frequencies is dominated by the radioactive glow (known as a 'kilonova') from freshly synthesized rapid neutron capture (r-process) material in the merger ejecta, observations at X-ray and, later, radio frequencies are consistent with a short Y-ray burst viewed off-axis. Our detection of X-ray emission at a location coincident with the kilonova transient provides the missing observational link between short Y-ray bursts and gravitational waves from neutron-star mergers, and gives independent confirmation of the collimated nature of the Y-ray-burst emission.