Jul 5 – 10, 2021
Europe/Rome timezone

Constraining and comparing short gamma-ray burst beam profiles using gravitational waves

Jul 5, 2021, 7:20 PM
10m
Talk in the parallel session Electromagnetic counterparts of compact binary mergers Electromagnetic Counterparts of Compact Binary Mergers

Speaker

Fergus Hayes (University of Glasgow)

Description

GRB 170817A was markedly dissimilar to any other detected short gamma-ray burst as it was observed off-axis. This was further made evident by the information gained from the accompanying observation of GW170817. The event has since sparked discussion into the short gamma-ray burst beam profile and how it can link the observed luminosity of GRB 170817A with the rest of the observed on-axis short gamma-ray burst population. By assuming the short gamma-ray burst beam profile is universal across events, we use a fully Bayesian analysis to place constraints on beam profiles associated with cocoon, structured and simple top-hat jet models, as well as the binary neutron star merger rate. The beam profiles are constrained to reconcile the discrepancy between GRB 170817A and the rest of the on-axis population, given the distance and inclination information from GW170817 and the neutron star merger rate inferred from LIGO's first and second observing runs. We further show that these models can be distinguished from one another given a population of future gravitational wave detections of neutron star mergers with and without a counterpart, promised by the observations made by third-generation detectors.

Primary author

Fergus Hayes (University of Glasgow)

Co-authors

Prof. Ik Siong Heng (University of Glasgow) Dr Gavin Lamb (University of Leicester) Dr John Veitch (University of Glasgow)

Presentation materials

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