Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX 79409, USA.
Science. 2017 Dec 22;358(6370):1579-1583. doi: 10.1126/science.aap9855. Epub 2017 Oct 16.
Gravitational waves have been detected from a binary neutron star merger event, GW170817. The detection of electromagnetic radiation from the same source has shown that the merger occurred in the outskirts of the galaxy NGC 4993, at a distance of 40 megaparsecs from Earth. We report the detection of a counterpart radio source that appears 16 days after the event, allowing us to diagnose the energetics and environment of the merger. The observed radio emission can be explained by either a collimated ultrarelativistic jet, viewed off-axis, or a cocoon of mildly relativistic ejecta. Within 100 days of the merger, the radio light curves will enable observers to distinguish between these models, and the angular velocity and geometry of the debris will be directly measurable by very long baseline interferometry.
引力波已经被探测到源自一个双中子星合并事件，GW170817。来自同一来源的电磁辐射的探测表明，合并发生在星系 NGC 4993 的郊区，距离地球 400 万秒差距。我们报告了一个对应射电源的探测，它出现在事件发生后 16 天，使我们能够诊断合并的能量学和环境。观测到的射电发射可以用一个准直的超高相对论喷流来解释，这个喷流是从轴外观察到的，或者是一个轻度相对论性喷射物的外壳。在合并后的 100 天内，射电光度曲线将使观测者能够区分这些模型，而碎片的角速度和几何形状将可以通过甚长基线干涉测量直接测量。
