English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

Very long baseline interferometry radio images recently proved to be essential in breaking the degeneracy in the ejecta model for the neutron star merger GW170817. We discuss the properties of synthetic radio images of merger jet afterglows by using semi-analytical models of laterally spreading or non-spreading jets. The image centroid initially moves away from the explosion point in the sky with apparent superluminal velocity. After reaching a maximum displacement, its motion is reversed. This behaviour is in line with that found in full hydrodynamic simulations. We show that the evolution of the centroid shift and the image size are significantly different when lateral spreading is considered. For Gaussian jet models with plausible model parameters, the morphology of the laterally spreading jet images is much closer to circular. The maximum displacement of the centroid shift and its occurrence time are smaller/earlier by a factor of a few for spreading jets. Our results indicate that it is crucial to include lateral spreading effects when analysing radio images of neutron star merger jets. We also obtain the viewing angle θobs by using the centroid shift of radio images provided the ratio of the jet core size θc and θobs is determined by afterglow light curves. We show that a simple method based on a point-source approximation provides reasonable angular estimates ($10{-}20{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ errors at most). By taking a sample of laterally spreading structured Gaussian jets, we obtain θobs ∼ 0.32 for GW170817, consistent with previous studies.

Lateral spreading effects on VLBI radio images of neutron star merger jets