AT2025ulz and S250818k: Deep X-ray and radio limits on off-axis afterglow emission and prospects for future discovery

TL;DR

This paper reports deep X-ray and radio observations of a candidate neutron star merger, setting constraints on off-axis afterglow emissions and discussing future detection prospects.

Contribution

It provides the first constraints on off-axis afterglow emission from a recent GW candidate using multi-wavelength observations.

Findings

Deep X-ray and radio limits exclude GW170817-like afterglows beyond 12.5° viewing angles.

Reinforces the classification of AT2025ulz as a supernova, not a kilonova afterglow.

Constraints inform future strategies for detecting off-axis neutron star merger afterglows.

Abstract

The first joint electromagentic (EM) and gravitational wave (GW) detection, known as GW170817, marked a critical juncture in our collective understanding of compact object mergers. However, it has now been 8 years since this discovery, and the search for a second EM-GW detection has yielded no robust discoveries. Recently, on August 18, 2025, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA collaboration reported a low-significance (high false alarm rate) binary neutron star merger candidate S250818k. Rapid optical follow-up revealed a single optical candidate AT2025ulz ($z=0.08484$) that initially appeared consistent with kilonova emission. We quickly initiated a set of observations with \textit{Swift}, \textit{XMM-Newton}, \textit{Chandra}, and the Very Large Array to search for non-thermal afterglow emission. Our deep X-ray and radio search rules out that the optical rebrightening of AT2025ulz is related to the afterglow onset, reinforcing its classification as a stripped-envelope supernova (SN 2025ulz). We derive constraints on the afterglow parameters for a hypothetical binary neutron star merger at the distance of AT2025ulz ($\approx 400$ Mpc) based on our X-ray and radio limits. We conclude that our observational campaign could exclude a GW170817-like afterglow out to viewing angles of $\theta_\textrm{v}\approx 12.5$ degrees. We briefly discuss the prospects for the future discovery of off-axis afterglows.