Late afterglow emission statistics: a clear link between GW170817 and bright short GRBs

Abstract

GW170817, the first neutron star merger event detected by advanced LIGO/Virgo detectors, was associated with an underluminous short duration GRB 170817A. In this work we compare the forward shock afterglow emission of GW170817/GRB 170817A to other luminous short GRBs (sGRBs) with both a known redshift and an afterglow emission lasting at least one day after the burst. In the rapid decay phase, the afterglow emission of the bright sGRBs and GW170817/GRB 170817A form a natural and continuous sequence, though separated by an observation time gap. If viewed on-axis, the forward shock afterglow emission of GW170817/GRB 170817A would be among the brightest ones detected so far. This provides a strong evidence for the GW170817-like merger origin of bright sGRBs, and suggests that the detection of the forward shock afterglow emission of most neutron star merger events are more challenging than the case of GW170817 since usually the mergers will be more distant and the viewing angles are plausibly higher.

arXiv comment7 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (49)

• GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
• Measuring Reddening with SDSS Stellar Spectra and Recalibrating SFD
• The Physics of Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Methods and results of an automatic analysis of a complete sample of Swift-XRT observations of GRBs
• An Ordinary Short Gamma-Ray Burst with Extraordinary Implications: Fermi-GBM Detection of GRB 170817A
• Short-Duration Gamma-Ray Bursts
• INTEGRAL Detection of the First Prompt Gamma-Ray Signal Coincident with the Gravitational Wave Event GW170817
• Illuminating Gravitational Waves: A Concordant Picture of Photons from a Neutron Star Merger
• Superluminal motion of a relativistic jet in the neutron star merger GW170817
• A Decade of Short-duration Gamma-ray Burst Broad-band Afterglows: Energetics, Circumburst Densities, and Jet Opening Angles
• The afterglow of GRB050709 and the nature of the short-hard gamma-ray bursts
• No supernovae associated with two long-duration gamma ray bursts
• Afterglow lightcurves, viewing angle and the jet structure of gamma-ray bursts
• An enigmatic long-lasting gamma-ray burst not accompanied by a bright supernova
• Compact radio emission indicates a structured jet was produced by a binary neutron star merger
• The gamma-ray burst GRB060614 requires a novel explosive process
• The afterglow and elliptical host galaxy of the short gamma-ray burst GRB 050724
• The Third Swift Burst Alert Telescope Gamma-Ray Burst Catalog
• A Common Origin for Cosmic Explosions Inferred from Fireball Calorimetry
• A possible Macronova in the late afterglow of the `long-short' burst GRB 060614
• The Afterglow, Energetics and Host Galaxy of the Short-Hard Gamma-Ray Burst 051221a
• The Evolution of a Structured Relativistic Jet and GRB Afterglow Light-Curves
• The 3rd Fermi GBM Gamma-Ray Burst Catalog: The First Six Years
• The Macronova in GRB 050709 and the GRB/macronova connection
• Short GRB 130603B: Discovery of a jet break in the optical and radio afterglows, and a mysterious late-time X-ray excess
• The evolution of the X-ray afterglow emission of GW 170817 / GRB 170817A in XMM-Newton observations
• Electromagnetic Counterparts to Structured Jets from Gravitational Wave Detected Mergers
• The optical afterglow of GW170817 at one year post-merger
• Quasi-universal Gaussian jets: a unified picture for gamma-ray bursts and X-ray flashes
• A Strong Jet Signature in the Late-Time Lightcurve of GW170817
• The Konus-Wind catalog of gamma-ray bursts with known redshifts. I. Bursts detected in the triggered mode
• A luminous blue kilonova and an off-axis jet from a compact binary merger at z=0.1341
• Spatially resolved properties of the GRB 060505 host: implications for the nature of the progenitor
• Short GRBs at the dawn of the gravitational wave era
• The Electromagnetic Counterpart of the Binary Neutron Star Merger LIGO/VIRGO GW170817. VIII. A Comparison to Cosmological Short-duration Gamma-ray Bursts
• GRB 060505: A possible short-duration gamma-ray burst in a star forming region at redshift of 0.09
• Short GRBs: opening angles, local neutron star merger rate and off-axis events for GRB/GW association
• Jet Breaks in Short Gamma-Ray Bursts. I: The Uncollimated Afterglow of GRB 050724
• An achromatic break in the afterglow of the short GRB 140903A: evidence for a narrow jet
• GRB Afterglows from Anisotropic Jets
• GW170817/GRB 170817A/AT2017gfo association: some implications for physics and astrophysics
• Multicolor observations of the afterglow of the short/hard GRB 050724
• The Afterglow and ULIRG Host Galaxy of the Dark Short GRB 120804A
• Implications of the Tentative Association between GW150914 and a {\it Fermi}-GBM Transient
• A two component jet model for the X-ray afterglow flat segment in short GRB 051221A
• Prospects for joint gravitational wave and short gamma-ray burst observations
• A long optical plateau in the afterglow of the Extended Emission short GRB 150424A: Evidence for energy injection by a magnetar?
• GRB afterglow light curves from uniform and non-uniform jets
• How Special Is GRB 170817A?

Cited by in corpus (4)

• Estimating the maximum gravitational mass of nonrotating neutron stars from the GW170817/GRB 170817A/AT2017gfo observation
• The late afterglow of GW170817/GRB170817A: a large viewing angle and the shift of the Hubble constant to a value more consistent with the local measurements
• Prospects of calibrating afterglow modeling of short GRBs with gravitational wave inclination angle measurements and resolving the Hubble tension with a GW-GRB association event
• The Detection Prospect of the Counter Jet Radiation in the Late Afterglow of GRB 170817A