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The First Hours of the GW170817 Kilonova and the Importance of Early Optical and Ultraviolet Observations for Constraining Emission Models

• Authors: Iair Arcavi

2018 The Astrophysical Journal Letters 855 L23.

• Provider: AAS Journals

Caption: Figure 4.

Optical and ultraviolet light curves for the first 3 days after merger. Left: compared to the radioactive decay luminosity model from Villar et al. (2017) and the combined shock cooling—boosted radioactive decay model from Kasliwal et al. (2017). Right: compared to the single-component radioactive decay luminosity model from Waxman et al. (2017) and the shock cooling model from Piro & Kollmeier (2017). The Villar et al. (2017) pure radioactive decay model is more consistent with the ∼1 day rise seen in the optical bands, but the other models are more consistent with the subsequent decline. The Waxman et al. (2017) model is consistent with both the rise and decline but introduces a sharp jump in the light curves, which in reality may be smoother. Observations at earlier times, where the models differ more substantially, could provide stronger constraints for future events. Colors and filter shifts are the same as in Figure 1.