On the Progenitor of Binary Neutron Star Merger GW170817

Creators: Abbott, B. P.; Abbott, R.; Adhikari, R. X.; Ananyeva, A.; Anderson, S. B.; Appert, S.; Arai, K.; Araya, M. C.; Barayoga, J. C.; Barish, B. C.; Berger, B. K.; Billingsley, G.; Biscans, S; Blackburn, J. K.; Blair, C. D.; Bork, R.; Brooks, A. F.; Brunett, S.; Cahillane, C.; Callister, T. A.; Cepeda, C. B.; Coughlin, M. W.; Couvares, P.; Coyne, D. C.; Ehrens, P.; Eichholz, J.; Etzel, T.; Feicht, J.; Fries, E. M.; Gossan, S. E.; Gushwa, K. E.; Gustafson, E. K.; Heptonstall, A. W.; Isi, M.; Kamai, B.; Kanner, J. B.; Kondrashov, V.; Korth, W. Z.; Kozak, D. B.; Lazzarini, A.; Markowitz, A.; Maros, E.; Massinger, T. J.; Matichard, F.; McIntyre, G.; McIver, J.; Meshkov, S.; Nevin, L.; Pedraza, M.; Perreca, A.; Quintero, E. A.; Reitze, D. H.; Robertson, N. A.; Rollins, J. G.; Sachdev, S.; Sanchez, E. J.; Sanchez, L. E.; Schmidt, P.; Smith, R. J. E.; Taylor, R.; Torrie, C. I.; Tso, R.; Urban, A. L.; Vajente, G.; Vass, S.; Venugopalan, G.; Wade, A. R.; Wallace, L.; Weinstein, A. J.; Williams, R. D.; Willis, J. L.; Wipf, C. C.; Xiao, S.; Yamamoto, H.; Zhang, L.; Zucker, M. E.; Zweizig, J.; Barkett, K.; Blackman, J.; Chen, Y.; Ma, Y.; Pang, B.; Scheel, M.; Varma, V.; LIGO Scientific Collaboration; Virgo Collaboration

Abstract

On 2017 August 17 the merger of two compact objects with masses consistent with two neutron stars was discovered through gravitational-wave (GW170817), gamma-ray (GRB 170817A), and optical (SSS17a/AT 2017gfo) observations. The optical source was associated with the early-type galaxy NGC 4993 at a distance of just ~40 Mpc, consistent with the gravitational-wave measurement, and the merger was localized to be at a projected distance of ~2 kpc away from the galaxy's center. We use this minimal set of facts and the mass posteriors of the two neutron stars to derive the first constraints on the progenitor of GW170817 at the time of the second supernova (SN). We generate simulated progenitor populations and follow the three-dimensional kinematic evolution from binary neutron star (BNS) birth to the merger time, accounting for pre-SN galactic motion, for considerably different input distributions of the progenitor mass, pre-SN semimajor axis, and SN-kick velocity. Though not considerably tight, we find these constraints to be comparable to those for Galactic BNS progenitors. The derived constraints are very strongly influenced by the requirement of keeping the binary bound after the second SN and having the merger occur relatively close to the center of the galaxy. These constraints are insensitive to the galaxy's star formation history, provided the stellar populations are older than 1 Gyr.

Additional Information

© 2017 The American Astronomical Society. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Received 2017 October 12; revised 2017 October 16; accepted 2017 October 16; published 2017 December 1. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) for the construction and operation of the LIGO Laboratory and Advanced LIGO as well as the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) of the United Kingdom, the Max-Planck-Society (MPS), and the State of Niedersachsen/Germany for support of the construction of Advanced LIGO and construction and operation of the GEO600 detector. Additional support for Advanced LIGO was provided by the Australian Research Council. The authors gratefully acknowledge the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, for the construction and operation of the Virgo detector and the creation and support of the EGO consortium. The authors also gratefully acknowledge research support from these agencies as well as by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of India, the Department of Science and Technology, India, the Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB), India, the Ministry of Human Resource Development, India, the Spanish Agencia Estatal de Investigación, the Vicepresidència i Conselleria d'Innovació Recerca i Turisme and the Conselleria d'Educació i Universitat del Govern de les Illes Balears, the Conselleria d'Educació Investigació Cultura i Esport de la Generalitat Valenciana, the National Science Centre of Poland, the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), the Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the Russian Science Foundation, the European Commission, the European Regional Development Funds (ERDF), the Royal Society, the Scottish Funding Council, the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance, the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA), the Lyon Institute of Origins (LIO), the National Research, Development and Innovation Office Hungary (NKFI), the National Research Foundation of Korea, Industry Canada and the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation, the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council Canada, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations, and Communications, the International Center for Theoretical Physics South American Institute for Fundamental Research (ICTP-SAIFR), the Research Grants Council of Hong Kong, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC), the Leverhulme Trust, the Research Corporation, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Taiwan and the Kavli Foundation. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the NSF, STFC, MPS, INFN, CNRS, and the State of Niedersachsen/Germany for provision of computational resources.

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