The Panchromatic Afterglow of GW170817: The full uniform dataset, modeling, comparison with previous results and implications

Understand

We present the full panchromatic afterglow light curve data of GW170817, including new radio data as well as archival optical and X-ray data, between 0.5 and 940 days post-merger.

• By compiling all archival data, and reprocessing a subset of it, we have evaluated the impact of differences in data processing or flux determination methods used by different groups, and attempted to mitigate these differences to provide a more uniform dataset.
• Simple power-law fits to the uniform afterglow light curve indicate a $t^{0.86\pm0.04}$ rise, a $t^{-1.92\pm0.12}$ decline, and a peak occurring at $155\pm4$ days.
• The afterglow is optically thin throughout its evolution, consistent with a single spectral index ($-0.584\pm0.002$) across all epochs.