2016ApJ...828L...4Z -
Astrophys. J., 828, L4-L4 (2016/September-1)
Probing the environment of gravitational-wave transient sources with TeV afterglow emission.
ZHU Q.-Y. and WANG X.-Y.
Abstract (from CDS):
Recently, the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory detected gravitational-wave (GW) transients from mergers of binary black holes (BHs). The system may also produce a wide-angle, relativistic outflow if the claimed short gamma-ray burst detected by GBM is in real association with GW150914. It was suggested that mergers of double neutron stars (or neutron star-black hole binaries), another promising source of GW transients, also produce fast, wide-angle outflows. In this paper, we calculate the high-energy gamma-ray emission arising from the blast waves driven by these wide-angle outflows. We find that TeV emission arising from the inverse-Compton process in the relativistic outflow, originating from mergers of binary BHs that are similar to those in GW150914, could be detectable by ground-based Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes such as the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) if the sources occur in a dense medium with a density of n\gtrsim 0.3 cm^{-3}. For neutron star-neutron star (NS-NS) and NS-BH mergers, TeV emission from the wide-angle, mildly relativistic outflow could be detected as well, if it occurs in a dense medium with n\gtrsim 10–100 cm^{-3}. Thus, TeV afterglow emission could be a useful probe of the environment of the GW transients, which could shed light on the evolution channels of the progenitors of GW transients.
Abstract Copyright:
© 2016. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
Journal keyword(s):
gamma rays: general - gravitational waves - gravitational waves
Simbad objects:
4
Full paper
View the references in ADS
To bookmark this query, right click on this link: simbad:2016ApJ...828L...4Z and select 'bookmark this link' or equivalent in the popup menu