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Title: Search for Post-merger Gravitational Waves from the Remnant of the Binary Neutron Star Merger GW170817

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal. Letters (Online)
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The first observation of a binary neutron star (NS) coalescence by the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo gravitational-wave (GW) detectors offers an unprecedented opportunity to study matter under the most extreme conditions. After such a merger, a compact remnant is left over whose nature depends primarily on the masses of the inspiraling objects and on the equation of state of nuclear matter. This could be either a black hole (BH) or an NS, with the latter being either long-lived or too massive for stability implying delayed collapse to a BH. In this work, we introduce a search for GWs from the remnant of the binary NS merger GW170817 using data from Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo. We search for short- (lesssim1 s) and intermediate-duration (lesssim500 s) signals, which include GW emission from a hypermassive NS or supramassive NS, respectively. We find no signal from the post-merger remnant. Our derived strain upper limits are more than an order of magnitude larger than those predicted by most models. For short signals, our best upper limit on the root sum square of the GW strain emitted from 1–4 kHz is $${h}_{\mathrm{rss}}^{50 \% }=2.1\times {10}^{-22}\,{\mathrm{Hz}}^{-1/2}$$ at 50% detection efficiency. For intermediate-duration signals, our best upper limit at 50% detection efficiency is $${h}_{\mathrm{rss}}^{50 \% }=8.4\times {10}^{-22}\,{\mathrm{Hz}}^{-1/2}$$ for a millisecond magnetar model, and $${h}_{\mathrm{rss}}^{50 \% }=5.9\times {10}^{-22}\,{\mathrm{Hz}}^{-1/2}$$ for a bar-mode model. These findings suggest that post-merger emission from a similar event may be detectable when advanced detectors reach design sensitivity or with next-generation detectors.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States). National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE; National Science Foundation (NSF)
Contributing Organization:
LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration
OSTI ID:
1544093
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal. Letters (Online), Vol. 851, Issue 1; ISSN 2041-8213
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 146 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Gravitational Waves and Gamma-Rays from a Binary Neutron Star Merger: GW170817 and GRB 170817A text January 2017
GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral other January 2017
Estimating the contribution of dynamical ejecta in the kilonova associated with GW170817 text January 2017
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Early evolution of newly born magnetars with a strong toroidal field text January 2008
X-Pipeline: An analysis package for autonomous gravitational-wave burst searches text January 2009
Equation of State of Dense Matter from a density dependent relativistic mean field model text January 2010
Performance of an externally triggered gravitational-wave burst search text January 2012
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Wavelength-scale errors in optical localization due to spin–orbit coupling of light journal October 2018
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Bayesian inference analysis of unmodelled gravitational-wave transients journal January 2019
Spectral classification of gravitational-wave emission and equation of state constraints in binary neutron star mergers journal September 2019
Neutron skins of atomic nuclei: per aspera ad astra journal August 2019
Stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds journal November 2018
Observational diversity of magnetized neutron stars journal September 2019
Echoes from the abyss: a highly spinning black hole remnant for the binary neutron star merger GW170817 journal November 2019
A long-lived neutron star merger remnant in GW170817: constraints and clues from X-ray observations journal November 2018
Matched-filter study and energy budget suggest no detectable gravitational-wave ‘extended emission’ from GW170817 journal February 2019
Observational evidence for extended emission to GW170817 journal September 2018
Absorption by black hole remnants in metric-affine gravity journal July 2019
Gravitational-wave-driven tidal secular instability in neutron star binaries journal September 2019
First search for long-duration transient gravitational waves after glitches in the Vela and Crab pulsars journal September 2019
Gravitational waves from newborn accreting millisecond magnetars journal December 2019
Multiwaveform cross-correlation search method for intermediate-duration gravitational waves from gamma-ray bursts journal December 2019
A morphology-independent search for gravitational wave echoes in data from the first and second observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo journal March 2020
Hidden Markov model tracking of continuous gravitational waves from young supernova remnants journal February 2018
X-ray guided gravitational-wave search for binary neutron star merger remnants journal August 2018
Universal afterglow of supernovaless gamma-ray bursts journal June 2019
Convective Excitation of Inertial Modes in Binary Neutron Star Mergers journal May 2018
Constraining the p -Mode– g -Mode Tidal Instability with GW170817 journal February 2019
Thermodynamics conditions of matter in neutron star mergers journal August 2019
The Merger of Two Compact Stars: A Tool for Dense Matter Nuclear Physics journal March 2018
Continuous Gravitational Waves from Neutron Stars: Current Status and Prospects journal October 2019
First Electromagnetic Pulse Associated with a Gravitational-wave Event: Profile, Duration, and Delay journal March 2018
The Allowed Parameter Space of a Long-lived Neutron Star as the Merger Remnant of GW170817 journal June 2018
A Long-lived Remnant Neutron Star after GW170817 Inferred from Its Associated Kilonova journal July 2018
Search for Gravitational Waves from a Long-lived Remnant of the Binary Neutron Star Merger GW170817 journal April 2019
When Did the Remnant of GW170817 Collapse to a Black Hole? journal May 2019
GW170817: Joint Constraint on the Neutron Star Equation of State from Multimessenger Observations journal January 2018
Brightening X-Ray/Optical/Radio Emission of GW170817/SGRB 170817A: Evidence for an Electron–Positron Wind from the Central Engine? journal March 2018
Multi-messenger Extended Emission from the Compact Remnant in GW170817 journal April 2019
The Multi-messenger Matrix: The Future of Neutron Star Merger Constraints on the Nuclear Equation of State journal July 2019
Model comparison from LIGO–Virgo data on GW170817’s binary components and consequences for the merger remnant journal January 2020
Constraining the gravitational-wave afterglow from a binary neutron star coalescence journal January 2020
Galactic double neutron star total masses and Gaussian mixture model selection journal February 2019
Search strategies for long gravitational-wave transients: Hidden Markov model tracking and seedless clustering journal July 2019
Cooling binary neutron star remnants via nucleon-nucleon-axion bremsstrahlung journal October 2019
Using gravitational-wave data to constrain dynamical tides in neutron star binaries journal January 2018
Gravitational wave echoes through new windows journal August 2018
Gravitational-Wave Luminosity of Binary Neutron Stars Mergers journal March 2018
GW170817: Measurements of Neutron Star Radii and Equation of State journal October 2018
GW170817 and the Prospect of Forming Supramassive Remnants in Neutron Star Mergers journal May 2018
X-Ray Afterglows of Short Gamma-Ray Bursts: Magnetar or Fireball? journal February 2019
Optimal Search Strategy for Finding Transients in Large-sky Error Regions under Realistic Constraints journal May 2019
Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics (MESA): Pulsating Variable Stars, Rotation, Convective Boundaries, and Energy Conservation journal July 2019
Model-independent reconstruction of the linear anisotropic stress η journal November 2018
Model comparison from LIGO-Virgo data on GW170817's binary components and consequences for the merger remnant other January 2020
Properties of the Binary Neutron Star Merger GW170817 text January 2019
Kilohertz gravitational waves from binary neutron star remnants: Time-domain model and constraints on extreme matter text January 2019
GW170817 and the prospect of forming supramassive remnants in neutron star mergers text January 2017
The merger of two compact stars: a tool for dense matter nuclear physics preprint January 2018
Convective Excitation of Inertial Modes in Binary Neutron Star Mergers text January 2018
Observational evidence for Extended Emission to GW170817 text January 2018
Search for gravitational waves from a long-lived remnant of the binary neutron star merger GW170817 text January 2018
X-ray afterglows of Short gamma-ray bursts: Magnetar or Fireball? text January 2018
The Multi-Messenger Matrix: the Future of Neutron Star Merger Constraints on the Nuclear Equation of State text January 2019
Absorption by black hole remnants in metric-affine gravity text January 2019
Cooling binary neutron star remnants via nucleon-nucleon-axion bremsstrahlung text January 2019
Constraining the Gravitational-Wave Afterglow From a Binary Neutron Star Coalescence text January 2019
Gravitational-wave-driven tidal secular instability in neutron star binaries text January 2019

Figures / Tables (4)