Inferring kilonova ejecta photospheric properties from early blackbody spectra

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1. Verfasser: Sadeh, Gilad
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Sadeh, Gilad
author_facet Sadeh, Gilad
contents We present simple analytic corrections to the standard blackbody fitting used for early kilonova emission. We consider a spherical, relativistically expanding shell that radiates thermally at a single temperature in its own rest frame. Due to relativistic effects, including Doppler boosting, time delay, and temperature evolution -- the observed temperature is smeared across different polar angles by approximately $\sim10\%$. While the observed spectrum remains roughly consistent with a single-temperature blackbody, neglecting relativistic effects leads to significant systematic inaccuracies: the inferred photospheric velocity and temperature are overestimated by up to $\sim50\%$ for mildly relativistic velocities. By applying our analytic corrections, these deviations are reduced to within $10\%$, even in cases where the photosphere is receding and cooling is considered. Applying our corrections to observed kilonovae (AT2017gfo and the thermal component of GRB211211A) reveals that standard blackbody fitting overestimated the inferred velocities and temperatures by $10\%-40\%$, such deviations can alter the inferred formation of heavy elements.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2503_04700
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Inferring kilonova ejecta photospheric properties from early blackbody spectra
Sadeh, Gilad
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
We present simple analytic corrections to the standard blackbody fitting used for early kilonova emission. We consider a spherical, relativistically expanding shell that radiates thermally at a single temperature in its own rest frame. Due to relativistic effects, including Doppler boosting, time delay, and temperature evolution -- the observed temperature is smeared across different polar angles by approximately $\sim10\%$. While the observed spectrum remains roughly consistent with a single-temperature blackbody, neglecting relativistic effects leads to significant systematic inaccuracies: the inferred photospheric velocity and temperature are overestimated by up to $\sim50\%$ for mildly relativistic velocities. By applying our analytic corrections, these deviations are reduced to within $10\%$, even in cases where the photosphere is receding and cooling is considered. Applying our corrections to observed kilonovae (AT2017gfo and the thermal component of GRB211211A) reveals that standard blackbody fitting overestimated the inferred velocities and temperatures by $10\%-40\%$, such deviations can alter the inferred formation of heavy elements.
title Inferring kilonova ejecta photospheric properties from early blackbody spectra
topic High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.04700