The orbit of GW170817 was inclined by less than 28 degrees to the line of sight

Abstract

We combine the gravitational-wave measurement of the effective distance to the binary neutron star merger GW170817, the redshift of its host galaxy NGC 4993, and the latest Hubble constant measurement from the Dark Energy Survey to constrain the inclination between the orbital angular momentum of the binary and the line of sight to $18\pm 8$ degrees (less than 28 degrees at 90% confidence). This provides a complementary constraint on models of potential afterglow observations.

Revised and expanded, to match version accepted by ApJ Letters

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• The electromagnetic counterparts of compact binary mergers
• Low-Latency Gravitational Wave Alerts for Multi-Messenger Astronomy During the Second Advanced LIGO and Virgo Observing Run
• Searching for Electromagnetic Counterparts to Gravitational-wave Merger Events with the Prototype Gravitational-wave Optical Transient Observer (GOTO-4)
• The Diversity of Kilonova Emission in Short Gamma-Ray Bursts
• A comparison between short GRB afterglows and AT2017gfo: shedding light on kilonovae properties
• Constraining the Inclination of Binary Mergers from Gravitational-wave Observations
• Trans-Ejecta High-Energy Neutrino Emission from Binary Neutron Star Mergers
• Measuring the viewing angle of GW170817 with electromagnetic and gravitational waves
• A Search for Neutron Star-Black Hole Binary Mergers in the Short Gamma-Ray Burst Population
• On the possibility of GW190425 being a black hole--neutron star binary merger
• Constraints on the emitting region of the gamma-rays observed in GW170817
• physiCal: A physical approach to the marginalization of LIGO calibration uncertainties
• The origin of polarization in kilonovae and the case of the gravitational-wave counterpart AT 2017gfo
• GRB 170817A as a Refreshed Shock Afterglow viewed off-axis
• The short gamma-ray burst population in a quasi-universal jet scenario
• Delayed jet breakouts from binary neutron star mergers
• Continued Brightening of the Afterglow of GW170817/GRB 170817A as due to a Delayed Energy Injection
• Prospects of joint detections of neutron star mergers and short-GRBs with Gaussian structured jets
• Constraining properties of neutron star merger outflows with radio observations
• Radio Afterglows from Compact Binary Coalescences: Prospects for Next-Generation Telescopes
• Afterglow light curves of the non-relativistic ejecta mass in a stratified circumstellar medium
• The luminosity functions of kilonovae from binary neutron star mergers under different equation of states
• Short duration gamma-ray bursts and their outflows in light of GW170817
• Binary Neutron Star Mergers with Missing Electromagnetic Counterparts as Manifestations of Mirror World
• GRB 170817A Afterglow from a Relativistic Electron-Positron Pair Wind Observed Off-axis
• Polarization of the first-hour macronovae
• Missed opportunities: GRB 211211A and the case for continual gravitational-wave coverage with a single observatory
• Properties of jet and surrounding material of GW/GRB~170817A
• Binary Neutron Star (BNS) merger: What we learned from relativistic ejecta of GW/GRB~170817A
• Detectability of Electromagnetic counterparts from Neutron Star mergers: prompt emission vs afterglow
• Gamma-radiation sky maps from compact binaries
• Upper limits on microhertz gravitational waves from supermassive black-hole binaries using PSR J1909-3744 data from the second IPTA data release