Jet Propagation in Neutron Star Mergers and GW170817

Abstract: The gravitational wave event from the binary neutron star (BNS) merger GW170817 and the following multi-messenger observations present strong evidence for i) merger ejecta expanding with substantial velocities and ii) a relativistic jet which had to propagate through the merger ejecta. The ejecta's expansion velocity is not negligible for the jet head motion, which is a fundamental difference from the other systems like collapsars and active galactic nuclei. Here we present an analytic model of the jet propagation in an expanding medium. In particular, we notice a new term in the expression of the breakout time and velocity. In parallel, we perform a series of over a hundred 2D numerical simulations of jet propagation. The BNS merger ejecta is prepared based on numerical relativity simulations of a BNS merger with the highest-resolution to date. We show that our analytic results agree with numerical simulations over a wide parameter space. Then we apply our analytic model to GW170817, and obtain two solid constraints on: i) the central engine luminosity as $L_{iso,0} \sim 3\times10^{49}-2.5\times10^{52}$ erg s$^{-1}$, and on ii) the delay time between the merger and engine activation $t_0-t_m < 1.3$ s. The engine power implies that the apparently-faint \textit{short} gamma-ray burst (\textit{s}GRB) \textit{s}GRB 170817A is similar to typical \textit{s}GRBs if observed on-axis.