A year in the life of GW170817: the rise and fall of a structured jet from a binary neutron star merger

We present the results of our year-long afterglow monitoring of GW170817, the first binary neutron star (NS) merger detected by advanced LIGO and advanced Virgo. New observations with the Australian Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) and the Chandra X-ray Telescope were used to constrain its late-time behavior. The broadband emission, from radio to X-rays, is well-described by a simple power-law spectrum with index β ∼0.585 at all epochs. After an initial shallow rise ∝ t0.9, the afterglow displayed a smooth turn-over, reaching a peak X-ray luminosity of LX≈5 ×1039 erg s−1 at 160 d, and has now entered a phase of rapid decline, approximately ∝ t−2. The latest temporal trend challenges most models of choked jet/cocoon systems, and is instead consistent with the emergence of a relativistic structured jet seen at an angle of ≈22○ from its axis. Within such model, the properties of the explosion (such as its blastwave energy EK ≈ 2 × 1050 erg, jet width θc ≈4○, and ambient density n ≈3 × 10−3 cm−3) fit well within the range of properties of cosmological short GRBs.