Brightening X-ray/Optical/Radio Emission of GW170817/SGRB 170817A: Results of an Electron-Positron Wind from the Central Engine?

TL;DR

This paper proposes that an electron-positron wind from a long-lived neutron star remnant interacting with the jet can explain the late-time brightening of GW170817/SGRB 170817A across X-ray, optical, and radio wavelengths, challenging previous models.

Contribution

It introduces a novel model where the NS wind creates a long-lived reverse shock, accounting for observed emissions and providing a way to constrain NS ellipticity through peak timing.

Findings

The model fits the observed late-time brightening across multiple wavelengths.

The peak time of brightening constrains the neutron star's ellipticity.

Radio polarization observations can distinguish this scenario from others.

Abstract

Recent follow-up observations of the binary neutron star (NS) merging event GW170817/SGRB 170817A reveal that its X-ray/optical/radio emissions are brightening continuously up to $\sim 100$ days post-merger. This late-time brightening is unexpected from the kilonova model or the off-axis top-hat jet model for gamma-ray burst afterglows. In this paper, by assuming that the merger remnant is a long-lived NS, we propose that the interaction between an electron-positron-pair ($e^+e^-$) wind from the central NS and the jet could produce a long-lived reverse shock, from which a new emission component would rise and can interpret current observations well. The magnetic-field-induced ellipticity of the NS is taken to be $4 \times 10^{-5}$ in our modeling, so that the braking of the NS is mainly through the gravitational wave (GW) radiation rather than the magnetic dipole radiation, and the emission luminosity at early times would not exceed the observational limits. In our scenario, since the peak time of the brightening is roughly equal to the spin-down time scale of the NS, the accurate peak time may help constrain the ellipticity of the remnant NS. We suggest that radio polarization observations of the brightening would help to distinguish our scenario from other scenarios. Future observations on a large sample of short gamma-ray burst afterglows or detections of GW signals from merger remnants would test our scenario.