Data · dataset · 2026
Discovering and characterising compact mergers in wide-field surveys
Listed in ZivaHub and Deakin Research Online and DMU Figshare and UCL Research Data Repository — shown once because both records carry DOI 10.17034/32631444.v1
This thesis concentrates on efforts to identify and characterize compact mergers involving neutron stars using wide-field survey instruments.
Description
With the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) and the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), searches for compact mergers, including kilonovae, have been performed. The Pan-STARRS search identified two rapidly evolving transients with similar decline rates to the first kilonova, AT2017gfo, in PS15cey and PS17cke.
While model fits of black hole-neutron star mergers can match the peak luminosity of PS15cey, a kilonova interpretation is less likely than a rapidly evolving supernova. PS17cke may be a plausible kilonova candidate, however, based on supporting modelling. The ATLAS search has returned no plausible kilonova candidates, but has identified a unique optical transient in AT2018kzr whose peak luminosity and rapid decline are difficult to describe using a traditional Nickel-56 driven explosion models.
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This necessitates the inclusion of an additional powering source, such as the spin-down of a magnetic neutron star remnant, to provide a plausible model fit to the bolometric lightcurve. Spectral modelling suggests the object is characterised by intermediate mass elements (including oxygen, silicone and magnesium) which disfavours a neutron star-neutron star merger scenario, but is consistent with predictions of white dwarfneutron star mergers.
The lack of a kilonova detection by ATLAS has prompted the development of an efficiency simulation to understand the challenges of observing rapidly evolving and intrinsically faint transients with all-sky survey telescopes. Such a simulation has been used to constrain the volumetric rate of AT2017gfo-like transients in the local universe, with the results being consistent with other optically-derived rates estimates and rate of binary neutron star mergers measured gravitational wave observatories.
Given the available information, it is predicted ATLAS will need to continue observing for at least a decade in order to observe a kilonova.
Links
Where it is published
- DOI doi.org/10.17034/32631444.v1 ↗
DOI / persistent id · from zivahub uct ac za
Catalogue records · 1
- OAI-PMH record api.figshare.com/v2/oai?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_dc&identifier=oai%3Af… ↗
metadata API · from zivahub uct ac za
Topics
- From keywords
- Earth & Environmental Science · Earth & Environmental Science · Earth & Environmental Science · Earth & Environmental Science
- Inferred from text
- Geoinformatics 69% · Simulation 75%
Provenance · 4 source records, 10 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZivaHub | oai:figshare.com:article/32631444 | 5 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Deakin Research Online | oai:figshare.com:article/32631444 | 5 d ago | JSON v1 |
| DMU Figshare | oai:figshare.com:article/32631444 | 5 d ago | JSON v1 |
| UCL Research Data Repository | oai:figshare.com:article/32631444 | 5 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| concepts[field].anzsrc:group:3704 | enrichment · zivahub uct ac za | taxonomy-embedding@1.1.0 | title+keywords+description (69%) |
| concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmental | mapping · dro deakin edu au | connector:dro_deakin_edu_au@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmental | mapping · zivahub uct ac za | connector:zivahub_uct_ac_za@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmental | mapping · figshare dmu ac uk | connector:figshare_dmu_ac_uk@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:earth-environmental | mapping · rdr ucl ac uk | connector:rdr_ucl_ac_uk@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[method].local:method:simulation | enrichment · zivahub uct ac za | keyword-concept-rules@1.0.0 | title+description (75%) |
| description | source · zivahub uct ac za | connector:zivahub_uct_ac_za@1.0.0 | /metadata/dc/description |
| license_text | source · zivahub uct ac za | connector:zivahub_uct_ac_za@1.0.0 | |
| publication_date | source · zivahub uct ac za | connector:zivahub_uct_ac_za@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · zivahub uct ac za | connector:zivahub_uct_ac_za@1.0.0 | /metadata/dc/title |