WoU-MMA: Prompt and Afterglow Radio Signals from Neutron Star Mergers

WoU-MMA：中子星合并产生的瞬发和余辉无线电信号

• 批准号: 1911199
• 负责人: Kunal Mooley
• 金额: $ 52.83万
• 依托单位: California Institute of Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-09-15 至 2024-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1911199&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: WoU; MMA; Prompt; Afterglow; Radio

The merger of two ultra-compact stars, or neutron stars (NS), created the gravitational wave event, GW 170817. Investigation of the radio wave emission from the afterglow of GW170817 has provided key insights into the environment of the merger as well as the energy and morphology of the associated outflows. The late time confirmation of apparent superluminal motion has proved decisive in verifying the launch of a relativistic jet from the merger, as well as improving the use of mergers as "standard sirens" to constrain the Hubble constant of cosmology. With improved sensitivity of the gravitational wave detectors LIGO and Virgo, the next few years will begin an era when neutron star mergers will be routinely detected in the local universe. A research program at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) will facilitate the discovery, follow up and interpretation of the radio afterglows from these mergers, produced by synchrotron light emission. The investigators will make use of awarded observing time on the NSF's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) and an approved program utilizing very long baseline interferometry (VLBI). Simultaneously, this program will support new efforts to search for prompt low-frequency counterparts to these same events. In addition, the investigators will develop a multi-faceted program involving student education spanning K-12 and undergraduate students. Three undergraduates will complete summer fellowships over the course of the project. The principal investigator (PI) will mentor six high school students from the Pasadena Unified School District to produce science fair projects themed on gravitational wave and multi-messenger astronomy. Finally, the PI will deliver three public lectures on gravitational wave sources to a broad audience via the Caltech Astronomy Stargazing and Public Lecture Series.LIGO and Virgo will uncover a new population of nearby NS mergers. A comprehensive census of radio afterglow emission from these mergers will give insights into the physics of central engines, ejecta morphology and local environments of the merger. VLBI observations will be crucial for constraining the geometry of the mergers and hence for enabling precise measurements of the Hubble constant that can potentially resolve the tension between the Planck/CMB-Type Ia supernova discrepancy. Radio observations may provide the only means to detect an electromagnetic counterpart for a significant fraction of the mergers (30% or more; especially NS-black hole mergers). The results from the proposed research will also help in addressing key open questions in broader astronomy, including binary star evolution and compact binary merger history of the universe. Finally, this research facilitates sensitive searches for prompt low-frequency radio counterparts of mergers, which, while theoretically speculative, offers an exciting prospect - a prompt or precursor counterpart to LIGO/Virgo detected events. This project advances the goals of the NSF Windows on the Universe Big Idea.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

两颗超致密恒星或中子星(NS)的合并产生了引力波事件GW 170817。对GW170817余辉的无线电波发射的研究为合并的环境以及相关流出的能量和形态提供了关键的见解。事实证明，最近对表观超光速运动的确认在验证合并发射相对论喷气式飞机方面具有决定性意义，并改进了合并作为限制宇宙学哈勃常数的标准警报器的使用。随着引力波探测器LIGO和Virgo灵敏度的提高，未来几年将开始一个时代，中子星的合并将在局部宇宙中被常规探测到。加州理工学院(Caltech)的一项研究计划将有助于发现、跟踪和解释这些合并产生的无线电余辉，这些余辉是由同步加速器光发射产生的。调查人员将利用美国国家科学基金会的卡尔·G·詹斯基甚大阵列(VLA)上授予的观测时间和一个获得批准的利用甚长基线干涉测量(VLBI)的计划。同时，该计划将支持新的努力，寻找与这些相同事件相对应的及时低频事件。此外，调查人员将开发一个多方面的项目，涉及从K-12到本科生的学生教育。三名本科生将在整个项目过程中完成暑期奖学金。首席研究员(PI)将指导帕萨迪纳联合学区的六名高中生制作以引力波和多信使天文学为主题的科学博览会项目。最后，PI将通过加州理工学院天文观星系列和公共讲座系列向广大观众发表三次关于引力波来源的公开讲座。LIGO和处女座将发现附近NS合并的新群体。对这些合并的无线电余辉排放进行全面普查，将使人们对合并后中央引擎的物理、喷射物形态和当地环境有更深入的了解。VLBI观测将对限制合并的几何形状至关重要，从而能够精确测量哈勃常数，从而潜在地解决普朗克/CMB-Ia型超新星之间的紧张关系。无线电观测可能为很大一部分合并(30%或更多；特别是NS黑洞合并)提供了探测电磁对应物的唯一手段。拟议中的研究结果还将有助于解决更广泛的天文学中的关键开放问题，包括双星演化和宇宙的紧凑双星合并历史。最后，这项研究促进了对合并的及时低频无线电对应物的灵敏搜索，这虽然在理论上是推测的，但提供了一个令人兴奋的前景-LIGO/处女座探测到的事件的即时或前兆对应物。这个项目推进了NSF宇宙大理想之窗的目标。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

项目成果

The Panchromatic Afterglow of GW170817: The Full Uniform Data Set, Modeling, Comparison with Previous Results, and Implications

• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac1ffc
• 发表时间: 2020-06
• 期刊: The Astrophysical Journal
• 作者: S. Makhathini;Kunal Mooley;M. Brightman;K. Hotokezaka;A. Nayana;H. Intema;D. Dobie;E. Lenc;D. Perley;C. Fremling;J. Moldón;Davide Lazzati;David L. Kaplan;A. Balasubramanian;Ian Brown;D. Carbone;P. Chandra;A. Corsi;F. Camilo;Adam T. Deller;D. Frail;Tara Murphy;Eric J. Murphy;E. Nakar;O. Smirnov;R. Beswick;Rob Fender;G. Hallinan;I. Heywood;M. Kasliwal;Bomee Lee;Wenbin Lu;J. Rana;S. Perkins;Sarah V. White;G. I. Józsa;B. Hugo;P. Kamphuis

Late-time Evolution and Modeling of the Off-axis Gamma-Ray Burst Candidate FIRST J141918.9+394036

离轴伽马射线暴候选者 FIRST J141918.9 394036 的后期演化和建模

• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ac3330
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: The Astrophysical Journal
• 作者: Mooley, K. P.;Margalit, B.;Law, C. J.;Perley, D. A.;Deller, A. T.;Lazio, T. J.;Bietenholz, M. F.;Shimwell, T.;Intema, H. T.;Gaensler, B. M.
• 通讯作者: Gaensler, B. M.

The JAGWAR Prowls LIGO/Virgo O3 Paper I: Radio Search of a Possible Multimessenger Counterpart of the Binary Black Hole Merger Candidate S191216ap

• DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/abeaa8
• 发表时间: 2020-10
• 期刊: The Astrophysical Journal
• 作者: D. Bhakta;K. Mooley;A. Corsi;A. Balasubramanian;D. Dobie;D. Frail;G. Hallinan;D. Kaplan;S. Myers;L. Singer

Optical superluminal motion measurement in the neutron-star merger GW170817

• DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05145-7
• 发表时间: 2022-10
• 期刊: Nature
• 影响因子: 64.8
• 作者: K. Mooley;Jay Anderson;Wenbin Lu

Continued Radio Observations of GW170817 3.5 yr Post-merger

• DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/abfd38
• 发表时间: 2021-03
• 期刊: The Astrophysical Journal Letters
• 作者: A. Balasubramanian;A. Corsi;K. Mooley;M. Brightman;G. Hallinan;K. Hotokezaka;D. Kaplan;D. Lazzati;E. Murphy