James Webb Space Telescope Feed Post

Harvard ADS: Detecting prompt and afterglow jet emission of gravitational wave events from LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA and next generation detectors

Paper abstract: Following the wealth of new results enabled by multimessenger observations of the binary neutron star (BNS) merger GW170817, the next goal is increasing the number of detections of electromagnetic (EM) counterparts to gravitational wave (GW) events. Here, we study the detectability of the prompt emission and afterglows produced by the relativistic jets launched by BNS mergers that will be detected by LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) during their fifth observing run (O5), and by next generation (XG) GW detectors (Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer). We quantify the impact of various BNS merger and jet afterglow parameters on the likelihood of detection for a wide range of telescopes, focusing on the impact of the observer's viewing angle \theta_\textrm{v} and the jet's core half-opening angle \theta_\textrm{c}. We find that during the LVK O5 run, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is expected to reach the largest number of afterglow detections, up to 32\% of BNS mergers with 27\% detectable on timescales >10 d. Overall the detection of 20-30\% of events is possible across the EM spectrum with the available instruments, including the Chandra X-ray Observatory, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), and the Very Large Array (VLA). In the XG era, afterglows for 20-25\% of events will be detectable with AXIS, Athena, Lynx, UVEX, JWST and the next generation VLA (ngVLA), reaching beyond redshift z \gtrsim 1. We also find that the majority of detected afterglows are expected to accompany prompt gamma-ray emission detectable by the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, the Space-based multi-band astronomical Variable Objects Monitor (SVOM), and the Transient High-Energy Sky and Early Universe Surveyor (THESEUS), with at least ~ 6\% of afterglows being orphan.