Department of Physics
Research, teaching and outreach in Physics at UW–Madison

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Astronomy Colloquium
The fate of the merger remnant in GW170817 and its imprint on the jet structure
Date: Thursday, November 11th
Time: 3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Place: 4421 Sterling Hall, Coffee and Cookies at 3:30 pm, Talk starts at 3:45 pm
Speaker: Ariadna Murguia Berthier, UCSC/CIERA
Abstract: On August 17, 2017, LIGO/Virgo detected the first gravitational waves from merging neutron stars. This event, known as GW170817 was accompanied by observations all over the electromagnetic spectrum. The peculiar gamma-ray burst that followed the merger in GW170817, is unlike any gamma-ray burst observed before. In order to explain the afterglow observations, there is a need for the jet launched after the merger to have structure, which is a natural consequence of the interaction of the jet with the ambient medium. In this talk, I will show special relativistic simulations of the interaction of the jet with several outflows launched during the merger and compare the simulations to the observation. I will then use the results in order to constrain key properties of the merger, such as the delay time between the merger and the collapse to a black hole.




We strongly encourage you to attend the colloquium in person. If that is impossible, it is available over zoom at the following link:

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