2024/09/24 by Junfeng Wang, Linlin Xin, Wang, J. +10
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Physics and Astronomy · #Astro and Planetary Science #FOS: Physical sciences #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism Studies #High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) #Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2409.15653
openalex publication_date 2024/09/24 · openalex created_date 2024/10/26 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
In spite of the importance of studying the cosmic generation of heavy elements through the r-process, the detection of kilonova resulted from a merger of neutron star binaries is still a challenge task. In this paper, we show that the Visible Telescope (VT) onboard the on-going SVOM space mission is powerful for identifying kilonova candidates associated with short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) up to a distance of 600Mpc. A significant color variation, turn blue and then turn red, is revealed by calculating the light curves in both red and blue channels of VT by a linear combination of an afterglow and an associated kilonova. The maximum color variation is as high as ∼0.5-1 mag, which is far larger than the small photometry error of ∼0.2 mag of VT for a point source with a brightness of 23 mag. Up to a distance of 600Mpc, ∼1-2 kilonova candidates per year are predicted to be identified by VT.