GW170817/GRB 170817A/AT2017gfo association: some implications for physics and astrophysics

TL;DR

This paper discusses the implications of the GW170817/GRB 170817A/AT2017gfo event, constraining gravitational wave speed, ruling out certain dark matter models, and supporting neutron star mergers as sites of heavy element formation.

Contribution

It provides new constraints on gravitational wave velocity, tests of fundamental physics principles, and insights into the origin of heavy elements from neutron star mergers.

Findings

GW speed deviation constrained to ≤ 4.3×10⁻¹⁶

Dark Matter Emulators and Covariant Galileon models ruled out

Neutron star mergers confirmed as heavy r-process nucleosynthesis sites

Abstract

On 17 August 2017, a gravitational wave event (GW170817) and an associated short gamma-ray burst (GRB 170817A) from a binary neutron star merger had been detected. The followup optical/infrared observations also identified the macronova/kilonova emission (AT2017gfo). In this work we discuss some implications of the remarkable GW170817/GRB 170817A/AT2017gfo association. We show that the $\sim 1.7$s time delay between the gravitational wave (GW) and GRB signals imposes very tight constraint on the superluminal movement of gravitational waves (i.e., the relative departure of GW velocity from the speed of light is $\leq 4.3\times 10^{-16}$) or the possible violation of weak equivalence principle (i.e., the difference of the gamma-ray and GW trajectories in the gravitational field of the galaxy and the local universe should be within a factor of $\sim 3.4\times 10^{-9}$). The so-called Dark Matter Emulators and a class of contender models for cosmic acceleration ("Covariant Galileon") are ruled out, too. The successful identification of Lanthanide elements in the macronova/kilonova spectrum also excludes the possibility that the progenitors of GRB 170817A are a binary strange star system. The high neutron star merger rate (inferred from both the local sGRB data and the gravitational wave data) together with the significant ejected mass strongly suggest that such mergers are the prime sites of heavy r-process nucleosynthesis.