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No Detectable Kilonova Counterpart is Expected for O3 Neutron Star–Black Hole Candidates

2021/06/30 by Jin-Ping Zhu, Shichao Wu, Yuan-Pei Yang +5 · 3 citations
Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Astrophysics #Black hole (networking) #Gamma-ray burst #Gamma-ray bursts and supernovae #Gravitational wave #Kilonova #LIGO #Magnetar #Medicine #Neutron star #Physics #Population #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph.HE #astro-ph.SR #gr-qc

paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac19a7

published in The Astrophysical Journal 921(2), 156 (IOP Publishing) · 13 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in ApJ

arxiv created 2021/07/30 · openalex publication_date 2021/11/01 · arxiv updated 2021/11/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06

Abstract

Abstract We analyze the tidal disruption probability of potential neutron star–black hole (NSBH) merger gravitational-wave (GW) events, including GW190426152155, GW190814, GW200105162426, and GW200115042309, detected during the third observing run of the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration and the detectability of kilonova emission in connection with these events. The posterior distributions of GW190814 and GW200105162426 show that they must be plunging events, and hence no kilonova signal is expected from these events. With the stiffest NS equation of state allowed by the constraint of GW170817 taken into account, the probability that GW190426152155 and GW200115042309 can make tidal disruption is ∼24% and ∼3%, respectively. However, the predicted kilonova brightness is too faint to be detected for present follow-up search campaigns, which explains the lack of electromagnetic (EM) counterpart detection after triggers of these GW events. Based on the best-constrained population synthesis simulation results, we find that disrupted events account for only ≲20% of cosmological NSBH mergers, since most of the primary BHs could have low spins. The associated kilonovae for those disrupted events will still be difficult for LSST to discover after GW triggers in the future because of their low brightness and larger distances. For future GW-triggered multimessenger observations, potential short-duration gamma-ray bursts and afterglows are more probable EM counterparts of NSBH GW events.

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