Makhathini et al. present a multi-wavelength afterglow light curve
data of the neutron star--neutron star merger, GW170817, ranging from
0.5 and 940 days post-merger. By compiling all archival data
(including ATCA data), and reprocessing a subset of it, they have
ensured that the panchromatic dataset is uniform and therefore immune
to the differences in data processing or flux determination methods
used by different groups. Simple fits to the light curve indicate a
power-law rise, a peak occurring at 155 ± 4 days, and a power-law
decline. Using the late-time afterglow data they place constraints on
any long-lived neutron star remnant. The figure above shows the
multi-wavelength (radio, optical and X-ray) afterglow light curve of
GW170817, color coded according to the observing frequency, up to 940
days post-merger (upper limits are not shown) using the uniform
dataset presented in this work. The light curve is scaled to 3 GHz
using the best-fit spectral index (−0.57) derived from the
data.
The paper has been submitted to the Astrophysical
Journal.
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