GW170817 Most Likely Made a Black Hole [HEAP]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1712.03240


The detection of the neutron-star merger kilonova and short hard gamma-ray burst event GW170817 has been widely described, but one outstanding issue remains: the nature of the remnant of the event. Within the initial uncertainties, the remnant could be either a massive, rotating, magnetic neutron star or a black hole. One of the ways to distinguish these possibilities is with sensitive X-ray observations. We report here Chandra X-ray Observatory Director’s Discretionary Time observations made on 2017 Dec 03 and Dec 06 and conclude that X-ray data is consistent with synchrotron radiation in the external shock, and the most likely remnant is a black hole.

Read this paper on arXiv…

D. Pooley, P. Kumar and J. Wheeler
Tue, 12 Dec 17
18/78

Comments: 5 pages, 2 figures