TY - JOUR
T1 - Hours-long Near-UV/Optical Emission from Mildly Relativistic Outflows in Black Hole-Neutron Star Mergers
AU - Gottlieb, Ore
AU - Issa, Danat
AU - Jacquemin-Ide, Jonatan
AU - Liska, Matthew
AU - Tchekhovskoy, Alexander
AU - Foucart, Francois
AU - Kasen, Daniel
AU - Perna, Rosalba
AU - Quataert, Eliot
AU - Metzger, Brian D.
N1 - Funding Information:
O.G. is supported by a CIERA Postdoctoral Fellowship. D.I. is supported by Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) award No. 80NSSC21K1851. O.G. and A.T. acknowledge support by Fermi Cycle 14 Guest Investigator program 80NSSC22K0031. J.J. and A.T. acknowledge support by NSF AST-2009884 and NASA 80NSSC21K1746 grants. A.T. was also supported by NSF grants AST-2107839, AST-1815304, AST-1911080, AST-2206471, and OAC-2031997 and NASA grant 80NSSC18K0565. R.P. acknowledges support by NSF award AST-2006839. Support for this work was also provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through Chandra Award No. TM1-22005X issued by the Chandra X-ray Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for and on behalf of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under contract NAS8-03060. This research was facilitated by the Multimessenger Plasma Physics Center (MPPC), NSF grant PHY-2206607. This research used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 using NERSC award NP-ERCAP0020543 (allocation m2401). An award of computer time was provided by the ASCR Leadership Computing Challenge (ALCC), Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE), and OLCF Director’s Discretionary Allocation programs under award PHY129. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 using NERSC award ALCC-ERCAP0022634.
Funding Information:
O.G. is supported by a CIERA Postdoctoral Fellowship. D.I. is supported by Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST) award No. 80NSSC21K1851. O.G. and A.T. acknowledge support by Fermi Cycle 14 Guest Investigator program 80NSSC22K0031. J.J. and A.T. acknowledge support by NSF AST-2009884 and NASA 80NSSC21K1746 grants. A.T. was also supported by NSF grants AST-2107839, AST-1815304, AST-1911080, AST-2206471, and OAC-2031997 and NASA grant 80NSSC18K0565. R.P. acknowledges support by NSF award AST-2006839. Support for this work was also provided by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration through Chandra Award No. TM1-22005X issued by the Chandra X-ray Center, which is operated by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for and on behalf of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration under contract NAS8-03060. This research was facilitated by the Multimessenger Plasma Physics Center (MPPC), NSF grant PHY-2206607. This research used resources of the Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility, which is a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported under contract DE-AC05-00OR22725. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 using NERSC award NP-ERCAP0020543 (allocation m2401). An award of computer time was provided by the ASCR Leadership Computing Challenge (ALCC), Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE), and OLCF Director’s Discretionary Allocation programs under award PHY129. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center, a DOE Office of Science User Facility supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231 using NERSC award ALCC-ERCAP0022634.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
PY - 2023/8/1
Y1 - 2023/8/1
N2 - The ongoing LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing run O4 provides an opportunity to discover new multimessenger events, including binary neutron star (BNS) mergers such as GW170817 and the highly anticipated first detection of a multimessenger black hole-neutron star (BH-NS) merger. While BNS mergers were predicted to exhibit early optical emission from mildly relativistic outflows, it has remained uncertain whether the BH-NS merger ejecta provides the conditions for similar signals to emerge. We present the first modeling of early near-ultraviolet/optical emission from mildly relativistic outflows in BH-NS mergers. Adopting optimal binary properties, a mass ratio of q = 2, and a rapidly rotating BH, we utilize numerical relativity and general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations to follow the binary’s evolution from premerger to homologous expansion. We use an M1 neutrino transport GRMHD simulation to self-consistently estimate the opacity distribution in the outflows and find a bright near-ultraviolet/optical signal that emerges due to jet-powered cocoon cooling emission, outshining the kilonova emission at early time. The signal peaks at an absolute magnitude of ∼−15 a few hours after the merger, longer than previous estimates, which did not consider the first principles-based jet launching. By late 2024, the Rubin Observatory will have the capability to track the entire signal evolution or detect its peak up to distances of ≳1 Gpc. In 2026, ULTRASAT will conduct all-sky surveys within minutes, detecting some of these events within ∼200 Mpc. The BH-NS mergers with higher mass ratios or lower BH spins would produce shorter and fainter signals.
AB - The ongoing LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing run O4 provides an opportunity to discover new multimessenger events, including binary neutron star (BNS) mergers such as GW170817 and the highly anticipated first detection of a multimessenger black hole-neutron star (BH-NS) merger. While BNS mergers were predicted to exhibit early optical emission from mildly relativistic outflows, it has remained uncertain whether the BH-NS merger ejecta provides the conditions for similar signals to emerge. We present the first modeling of early near-ultraviolet/optical emission from mildly relativistic outflows in BH-NS mergers. Adopting optimal binary properties, a mass ratio of q = 2, and a rapidly rotating BH, we utilize numerical relativity and general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (GRMHD) simulations to follow the binary’s evolution from premerger to homologous expansion. We use an M1 neutrino transport GRMHD simulation to self-consistently estimate the opacity distribution in the outflows and find a bright near-ultraviolet/optical signal that emerges due to jet-powered cocoon cooling emission, outshining the kilonova emission at early time. The signal peaks at an absolute magnitude of ∼−15 a few hours after the merger, longer than previous estimates, which did not consider the first principles-based jet launching. By late 2024, the Rubin Observatory will have the capability to track the entire signal evolution or detect its peak up to distances of ≳1 Gpc. In 2026, ULTRASAT will conduct all-sky surveys within minutes, detecting some of these events within ∼200 Mpc. The BH-NS mergers with higher mass ratios or lower BH spins would produce shorter and fainter signals.
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85168349024&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3847/2041-8213/acec4a
DO - 10.3847/2041-8213/acec4a
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85168349024
SN - 2041-8205
VL - 953
JO - Astrophysical Journal Letters
JF - Astrophysical Journal Letters
IS - 1
M1 - L11
ER -