1. Observations of the first electromagnetic counterpart to a gravitational wave source by the TOROS collaboration
- Author
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Díaz, M. C., Macri, L. M., Lambas, D. Garcia, de Oliveira, C. Mendes, Castellón, J. L. Nilo, Ribeiro, T., Sánchez, B., Schoenell, W., Abramo, L. R., Akras, S., Alcaniz, J. S., Artola, R., Beroiz, M., Bonoli, S., Cabral, J., Camuccio, R., Castillo, M., Chavushyan, V., Coelho, P., Colazo, C., Costa-Duarte, M. V., Larenas, H. Cuevas, DePoy, D. L., Romero, M. Domínguez, Dultzin, D., Fernández, D., García, J., Girardini, C., Gonçalves, D. R., Gonçalves, T. S., Gurovich, S., Jiménez-Teja, Y., Kanaan, A., Lares, M., de Oliveira, R. Lopes, López-Cruz, O., Marshall, J. L., Melia, R., Molino, A., Padilla, N., Peñuela, T., Placco, V. M., Quiñones, C., Rivera, A. Ramírez, Renzi, V., Riguccini, L., Ríos-López, E., Rodriguez, H., Sampedro, L., Schneiter, M., Sodré, L., Starck, M., Torres-Flores, S., Tornatore, M., and Zadrożny, A.
- Subjects
Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,Astrophysics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics - Abstract
We present the results of prompt optical follow-up of the electromagnetic counterpart of the gravitational-wave event GW170817 by the Transient Optical Robotic Observatory of the South Collaboration (TOROS). We detected highly significant dimming in the light curves of the counterpart (Delta g=0.17+-0.03 mag, Delta r=0.14+-0.02 mag, Delta i=0.10 +- 0.03 mag) over the course of only 80 minutes of observations obtained ~35 hr after the trigger with the T80-South telescope. A second epoch of observations, obtained ~59 hr after the event with the EABA 1.5m telescope, confirms the fast fading nature of the transient. The observed colors of the counterpart suggest that this event was a "blue kilonova" relatively free of lanthanides., Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters
- Published
- 2017
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