A comparison between short GRB afterglows and AT2017gfo: shedding light on kilonovae properties

Understand

Multi-messenger astronomy received a great boost following the discovery of kilonova AT2017gfo, the optical counterpart of the gravitational wave source GW170817 associated with the short gamma-ray burst GRB 170817A.

• AT2017gfo was the first kilonova that could be extensively monitored in time both photometrically and spectroscopically.
• Previously, only few candidates have been observed against the glare of short GRB afterglows.
• In this work, we aim to search the fingerprints of AT2017gfo-like kilonova emissions in the optical/NIR light curves of 39 short GRBs with known redshift.