The nature of the prompt gamma-ray emission of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) is still far from being completely elucidated. The measure of linear polarization is a powerful tool that can be used to put ...further constraints on the content and magnetization of the GRB relativistic outflows, as well as on the radiation processes at work. To date, only a handful of polarization measurements are available for the prompt emission of GRBs. Here we present the analysis of the prompt emission of GRB 140206A, obtained with INTEGRAL/IBIS, Swift/BAT, and Fermi/GBM. Using INTEGRAL/IBIS as a Compton polarimeter, we were able to constrain the linear polarization level of the second peak of this GRB as being larger than 28 per cent at 90 per cent c.l. We also present the GRB afterglow optical spectroscopy obtained at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo, which allowed us to measure the distance of this GRB, z = 2.739. This distance value together with the polarization measure obtained with IBIS allowed us to derive the deepest and most reliable limit to date (ξ < 1 × 10−16) on the possibility of Lorentz invariance violation, measured through the vacuum birefringence effect on a cosmological source.
ABSTRACT
The detection of the optical transient AT2017gfo proved that binary neutron star mergers are progenitors of kilonovae (KNe). Using a combination of numerical-relativity and ...radiative-transfer simulations, the community has developed sophisticated models for these transients for a wide portion of the expected parameter space. Using these simulations and surrogate models made from them, it has been possible to perform Bayesian inference of the observed signals to infer properties of the ejected matter. It has been pointed out that combining inclination constraints derived from the KN with gravitational-wave measurements increases the accuracy with which binary parameters can be estimated, in particular breaking the distance-inclination degeneracy from gravitational wave inference. To avoid bias from the unknown ejecta geometry, constraints on the inclination angle for AT2017gfo should be insensitive to the employed models. In this work, we compare different assumptions about the ejecta and radiative reprocesses used by the community and we investigate their impact on the parameter inference. While most inferred parameters agree, we find disagreement between posteriors for the inclination angle for different geometries that have been used in the current literature. According to our study, the inclusion of reprocessing of the photons between different ejecta types improves the modeling fits to AT2017gfo and, in some cases, affects the inferred constraints. Our study motivates the inclusion of large ∼ 1-mag uncertainties in the KN models employed for Bayesian analysis to capture yet unknown systematics, especially when inferring inclination angles, although smaller uncertainties seem appropriate to capture model systematics for other intrinsic parameters. We can use this method to impose soft constraints on the ejecta geometry of the KN AT2017gfo.
ABSTRACT
The observation of the transient sky through a multitude of astrophysical messengers has led to several scientific breakthroughs in the last two decades, thanks to the fast evolution of the ...observational techniques and strategies employed by the astronomers. Now, it requires to be able to coordinate multiwavelength and multimessenger follow-up campaigns with instruments both in space and on ground jointly capable of scanning a large fraction of the sky with a high-imaging cadency and duty cycle. In the optical domain, the key challenge of the wide field-of-view telescopes covering tens to hundreds of square degrees is to deal with the detection, identification, and classification of hundreds to thousands of optical transient (OT) candidates every night in a reasonable amount of time. In the last decade, new automated tools based on machine learning approaches have been developed to perform those tasks with a low computing time and a high classification efficiency. In this paper, we present an efficient classification method using convolutional neural networks (CNNs) to discard many common types of bogus falsely detected in astrophysical images in the optical domain. We designed this tool to improve the performances of the OT detection pipeline of the Ground Wide field Angle Cameras (GWAC) telescopes, a network of robotic telescopes aiming at monitoring the OT sky down to R = 16 with a 15 s imaging cadency. We applied our trained CNN classifier on a sample of 1472 GWAC OT candidates detected by the real-time detection pipeline.
ABSTRACT
Although GRB 211211A is one of the closest gamma-ray bursts (GRBs), its classification is challenging because of its partially inconclusive electromagnetic signatures. In this paper, we ...investigate four astrophysical scenarios as possible progenitors for GRB 211211A: a binary neutron star merger, a black hole–neutron star merger, a core-collapse supernova, and an r-process enriched core collapse of a rapidly rotating massive star (a collapsar). We perform a large set of Bayesian multiwavelength analyses based on different models describing these scenarios and priors to investigate which astrophysical scenarios and processes might be related to GRB 211211A. Our analysis supports previous studies in which the presence of an additional component, likely related to r-process nucleosynthesis, is required to explain the observed light curves of GRB 211211A, as it cannot be explained solely as a GRB afterglow. Fixing the distance to about $350~\rm Mpc$, namely the distance of the possible host galaxy SDSS J140910.47+275320.8, we find a statistical preference for a binary neutron star merger scenario.
ABSTRACT
In the context of time domain astronomy, we present an offline detection search of gamma-ray transients using a wild binary segmentation analysis called F-WBSB targeting both short and long ...gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) and covering the soft and hard gamma-ray bands. We use NASA Fermi/GBM archival data as a training and testing data set. This paper describes the analysis applied to the 12 NaI detectors of the Fermi/GBM instrument. This includes background removal, change-point detection that brackets the peaks of gamma-ray flares, the evaluation of significance for each individual GBM detector, and the combination of the results among the detectors. We also explain the calibration of the ∼ 10 parameters present in the method using one week of archival data. Finally, we present our detection performance result for 60 d of a blind search analysis with F-WBSB by comparing to both the onboard and offline GBM search as well as external events found by others surveys such as Swift-BAT. We detect 42/44 onboard GBM events but also other gamma-ray flares at a rate of 1 per hour in the 4–50 keV band. Our results show that F-WBSB is capable of recovering gamma-ray flares, including the detection of soft X-ray long transients. FWBSB offers an independent identification of GRBs in combination with methods for determining spectral and temporal properties of the transient as well as localization. This is particularly useful for increasing the GRB rate and that will help the joint detection with gravitational-wave events.
Abstract
The early and complete temporal characterization of optical, fast, transient sources requires continuous and multiband observations over different timescales (hours to months). For ...time-domain astronomy, using several telescopes to analyze single objects is the usual method, allowing the acquisition of highly sampled light curves. Taking a series of images each night helps to construct an uninterrupted chain of observations with a high cadence and low duty cycle. Speed is paramount, especially at early times, in order to capture early features in the light curve that help determine the nature of the observed transients and assess their astrophysical properties. However, the problem of rapidly extracting source properties (temporal and color evolution) with a heterogeneous data set remains. Consequently, we present
Muphoten
, a general and fast-computation photometric pipeline able to address these constraints. It is suitable for extracting transient brightness over multitelescope and multiband networks to create a single homogeneous photometric time series. We show the performance of
Muphoten
with observations of the optical transient SN 2018cow (from 2018 June to 2018 July), monitored by the GRANDMA network and with the publicly available data of the Liverpool Telescope.
SVOM
(Space-based multi-band astronomical Variable Objects Monitor) is a Sino-French space mission dedicated to the study of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) in the next decade, capable to detect and localise ...the GRB emission, and to follow its evolution in the high-energy and X-ray domains, and in the visible and NIR bands. The satellite carries two wide-field high-energy instruments: a coded-mask gamma-ray imager (ECLAIRs; 4–150 keV), and a gamma-ray spectrometer (GRM; 15–5500 keV) that, together, will characterise the GRB prompt emission spectrum over a wide energy range. In this paper we describe the performances of the ECLAIRs and GRM system with different populations of GRBs from existing catalogues, from the classical ones to those with a possible thermal component superimposed to their non-thermal emission. The combination of ECLAIRs and the GRM will provide new insights also on other GRB properties, as for example the spectral characterisation of the subclass of short GRBs showing an extended emission after the initial spike.
ABSTRACT
GRANDMA (Global Rapid Advanced Network Devoted to the Multi-messenger Addicts) is a network of 25 telescopes of different sizes, including both photometric and spectroscopic facilities. The ...network aims to coordinate follow-up observations of gravitational-wave (GW) candidate alerts, especially those with large localization uncertainties, to reduce the delay between the initial detection and the optical confirmation. In this paper, we detail GRANDMA’s observational performance during Advanced LIGO/Advanced Virgo Observing Run 3 (O3), focusing on the second part of O3; this includes summary statistics pertaining to coverage and possible astrophysical origin of the candidates. To do so, we quantify our observation efficiency in terms of delay between GW candidate trigger time, observations, and the total coverage. Using an optimized and robust coordination system, GRANDMA followed-up about 90 per cent of the GW candidate alerts, that is 49 out of 56 candidates. This led to coverage of over 9000 deg2 during O3. The delay between the GW candidate trigger and the first observation was below 1.5 h for 50 per cent of the alerts. We did not detect any electromagnetic counterparts to the GW candidates during O3, likely due to the very large localization areas (on average thousands of degrees squares) and relatively large distance of the candidates (above 200 Mpc for 60 per cent of binary neutron star, BNS candidates). We derive constraints on potential kilonova properties for two potential BNS coalescences (GW190425 and S200213t), assuming that the events’ locations were imaged.
The detection of GW170817 is revolutionizing many areas of astrophysics with the joint observation of gravitational waves and electromagnetic emissions. These multimessenger events provide a new ...approach to determine the Hubble constant, thus, they are a promising candidate for mitigating the tension between measurements of type-Ia supernovae via the local distance ladder and the cosmic microwave background. In addition to the “standard siren” provided by the gravitational-wave measurement, the kilonova itself has characteristics that allow one to improve existing measurements or to perform yet another, independent measurement of the Hubble constant without gravitational-wave information. Here, we employ standardization techniques borrowed from the type-Ia community and apply them to kilonovae, not using any information from the gravitational-wave signal. We use two versions of this technique, one derived from direct observables measured from the light curve, and the other based on inferred ejecta parameters, e.g., mass, velocity, and composition, for two different models. These lead to Hubble constant measurements of H0=109−35+49 km s−1 Mpc−1 for the measured analysis, and H0=85−17+22 km s−1 Mpc−1 and H0=79−15+23 km s−1 Mpc−1 for the inferred analyses. This measurement has error bars within ∼2 to the gravitational-wave measurements (H0=74−8+16 km s−1 Mpc−1), showing its promise as an independent constraint on H0.
Full text
Available for:
CMK, CTK, FMFMET, IJS, NUK, PNG, UL, UM, UPUK
PDF
