| Literature DB >> 30792360 |
G Ghirlanda1,2,3, O S Salafia1,2,3, Z Paragi4, M Giroletti5, J Yang6,7, B Marcote4, J Blanchard4, I Agudo8, T An9, M G Bernardini10, R Beswick11, M Branchesi12,13, S Campana14, C Casadio15, E Chassande-Mottin16, M Colpi2,3, S Covino14, P D'Avanzo14, V D'Elia17, S Frey18, M Gawronski19, G Ghisellini14, L I Gurvits4,20, P G Jonker21,22, H J van Langevelde4,23, A Melandri14, J Moldon11, L Nava14, A Perego3, M A Perez-Torres8,24, C Reynolds25, R Salvaterra26, G Tagliaferri14, T Venturi5, S D Vergani27, M Zhang28,29.
Abstract
The binary neutron star merger event GW170817 was detected through both electromagnetic radiation and gravitational waves. Its afterglow emission may have been produced by either a narrow relativistic jet or an isotropic outflow. High-spatial-resolution measurements of the source size and displacement can discriminate between these scenarios. We present very-long-baseline interferometry observations, performed 207.4 days after the merger by using a global network of 32 radio telescopes. The apparent source size is constrained to be smaller than 2.5 milli-arc seconds at the 90% confidence level. This excludes the isotropic outflow scenario, which would have produced a larger apparent size, indicating that GW170817 produced a structured relativistic jet. Our rate calculations show that at least 10% of neutron star mergers produce such a jet.Entities:
Year: 2019 PMID: 30792360 DOI: 10.1126/science.aau8815
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Science ISSN: 0036-8075 Impact factor: 47.728