The DOI matches its Crossref record; 1 of the 1 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
A kilonova as the electromagnetic counterpart to a gravitational-wave source
Open accessAbstract
Gravitational waves were discovered with the detection of binary black-hole mergers and they should also be detectable from lower-mass neutron-star mergers. These are predicted to eject material rich in heavy radioactive isotopes that can power an electromagnetic signal. This signal is luminous at optical and infrared wavelengths and is called a kilonova. The gravitational-wave source GW170817 arose from a binary neutron-star merger in the nearby Universe with a relatively well confined sky position and distance estimate. Here we report observations and physical modelling of a rapidly fading electromagnetic transient in the galaxy NGC 4993, which is spatially coincident with GW170817 and with a weak, short γ-ray burst. The transient has physical parameters that broadly match the theoretical predictions of blue kilonovae from neutron-star mergers. The emitted electromagnetic radiation can be explained with an ejected mass of 0.04 ± 0.01 solar masses, with an opacity of less than 0.5 square centimetres per gram, at a velocity of 0.2 ± 0.1 times light speed. The power source is constrained to have a power-law slope of −1.2 ± 0.3, consistent with radioactive powering from r-process nuclides. (The r-process is a series of neutron capture reactions that synthesise many of the elements heavier than iron.) We identify line features in the spectra that are consistent with light r-process elements (atomic masses of 90–140). As it fades, the transient rapidly becomes red, and a higher-opacity, lanthanide-rich ejecta component may contribute to the emission. This indicates that neutron-star mergers produce gravitational waves and radioactively powered kilonovae, and are a nucleosynthetic source of the r-process elements.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
THE SEVENTH DATA RELEASE OF THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY
Abazajian, K. N., Adelman-McCarthy, J. K., Agüeros, M. A., Allam, S. S., Prieto, C. A., An, D., Anderson, K. S. J., Anderson, S. F., Annis, J., Bahcall, N. A., et al. (2009) · The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series · doi:10.1088/0067-0049/182/2/543 · Cited by 5,341
Self-citation
Cited by
The X-ray counterpart to the gravitational-wave event GW170817
Troja, E., Piro, L., van Eerten, H., Wollaeger, R. T., Im, M., Fox, O. D., Butler, N. R., Cenko, S. B., Sakamoto, T., Fryer, C. L., et al. (2017) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature24290 · Cited by 874
Villar, V. A., Guillochon, J., Berger, E., Metzger, B. D., Cowperthwaite, P. S., Nicholl, M., Alexander, K. D., Blanchard, P. K., Chornock, R., Eftekhari, T., et al. (2017) · The Astrophysical Journal Letters · doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aa9c84 · Cited by 574
Identification of strontium in the merger of two neutron stars
Watson, D., Hansen, C. J., Selsing, J., Koch, A., Malesani, D. B., Andersen, A. C., Fynbo, J. P. U., Arcones, A., Bauswein, A., Covino, S., et al. (2019) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1676-3 · Cited by 482
Self-citation
Metadata
- Authors
- Smartt, S. J., Chen, T.-W., Jerkstrand, A., Coughlin, M., Kankare, E., Sim, S. A., Fraser, M., Inserra, C., Maguire, K., Chambers, K. C., Huber, M. E., Krühler, T., Leloudas, G., Magee, M., Shingles, L. J., Smith, K. W., Young, D. R., Tonry, J., Kotak, R., Gal-Yam, A., Lyman, J. D., Homan, D. S., Agliozzo, C., Anderson, J. P., Angus, C. R., Ashall, C., Barbarino, C., Bauer, F. E., Berton, M., Botticella, M. T., Bulla, M., Bulger, J., Cannizzaro, G., Cano, Z., Cartier, R., Cikota, A., Clark, P., De Cia, A., Della Valle, M., Denneau, L., Dennefeld, M., Dessart, L., Dimitriadis, G., Elias-Rosa, N., Firth, R. E., Flewelling, H., Flörs, A., Franckowiak, A., Frohmaier, C., Galbany, L., González-Gaitán, S., Greiner, J., Gromadzki, M., Guelbenzu, A. N., Gutiérrez, C. P., Hamanowicz, A., Hanlon, L., Harmanen, J., Heintz, K. E., Heinze, A., Hernandez, M.-S., Hodgkin, S. T., Hook, I. M., Izzo, L., James, P. A., Jonker, P. G., Kerzendorf, W. E., Klose, S., Kostrzewa-Rutkowska, Z., Kowalski, M., Kromer, M., Kuncarayakti, H., Lawrence, A., Lowe, T. B., Magnier, E. A., Manulis, I., Martin-Carrillo, A., Mattila, S., McBrien, O., Müller, A., Nordin, J., O’Neill, D., Onori, F., Palmerio, J. T., Pastorello, A., Patat, F., Pignata, G., Podsiadlowski, P., Pumo, M. L., Prentice, S. J., Rau, A., Razza, A., Rest, A., Reynolds, T., Roy, R., Ruiter, A. J., Rybicki, K. A., Salmon, L., Schady, P., Schultz, A. S. B., Schweyer, T., Seitenzahl, I. R., Smith, M., Sollerman, J., Stalder, B., Stubbs, C. W., Sullivan, M., Szegedi, H., Taddia, F., Taubenberger, S., Terreran, G., van Soelen, B., Vos, J., Wainscoat, R. J., Walton, N. A., Waters, C., Weiland, H., Willman, M., Wiseman, P., Wright, D. E., Wyrzykowski, Ł., & Yaron, O.
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2017-10-16
- Volume
- 551
- Issue
- 7678
- Pages
- 75-79
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2765180549
- Cited by
- 866
- References
- 1
- FWCI
- 55.54
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: A kilonova as the electromagnetic counterpart to a gravitational-wave source. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1038/nature24303
- The paper
- Smartt, S. J., Chen, T.-W., Jerkstrand, A., Coughlin, M., Kankare, E., Sim, S. A., Fraser, M., Inserra, C., Maguire, K., Chambers, K. C., Huber, M. E., Krühler, T., Leloudas, G., Magee, M., Shingles, L. J., Smith, K. W., Young, D. R., Tonry, J., Kotak, R., . . . Yaron, O. (2017). A kilonova as the electromagnetic counterpart to a gravitational-wave source. Nature. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature24303
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
