A first-principles binary neutron star merger model of GW170817, GRB170817A, and AT2017gfo

[2608.27555] A first-principles binary neutron star merger model of GW170817, GRB170817A, and AT2017gfo Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Astrophysics > High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena arXiv:2608.27555 (astro-ph) [Submitted on 27 Aug 2026] Title: A first-principles binary neutron star merger model of GW170817, GRB170817A, and AT2017gfo Authors: Kenta Kiuchi , Sho Fujibayashi , Kota Hayashi , Kyohei Kawaguchi , Quentin Pognan , Alexis Reboul-Salze , Yuichiro Sekiguchi , Masaru Shibata , Shinya Wanajo View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: The multimessenger observation of the binary neutron star merger event GW170817, associated with its electromagnetic counterparts GRB170817A and AT2017gfo, marked a milestone in astrophysics, yet its unified physical explanation remains elusive. We conduct an end-to-end simulation based on a first-principles general-relativistic magnetohydrodynamics neutrino-radiation transfer merger simulation, followed by nucleosynthesis calculations and photon radiative transfer to generate kilonova light curves. We show that the large-scale dynamo simultaneously produces a relativistic jet with an isotropic-equivalent luminosity of $\sim 10^{51}~{\rm erg~s^{-1}}$ and $\approx 0.08M_\odot$ of neutron-rich ejecta, reproducing the GRB170817A afterglow and the AT2017gfo kilonova light curves. Our results establish a unified first-principles framework for interpreting binary neutron star mergers across gravitational wave, gamma-ray burst, and kilonova observations. Comments: 9 pages for the main text and 3 figures. 40 pages for the Supplementary Material Subjects: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) ; General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) Cite as: arXiv:2608.27555 [astro-ph.HE] (or arXiv:2608.27555v1 [astro-ph.HE] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.27555 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Submission history From: Kenta Kiuchi [ view email ] [v1] Thu, 27 Aug 2026 18:00:00 UTC (16,355 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Additional Features Audio Summary Current browse context: astro-ph.HE < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-08 Change to browse by: astro-ph gr-qc References & Citations INSPIRE HEP SciX Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer ( What is the Explorer? ) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers ( What is Connected Papers? ) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps ( What is Litmaps? ) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations ( What are Smart Citations? ) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv ( What is alphaXiv? ) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers ( What is CatalyzeX? ) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub ( What is DagsHub? ) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub ( What is GotitPub? ) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face ( What is Huggingface? ) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast ( What is ScienceCast? ) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate ( What is Replicate? ) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces ( What is Spaces? ) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI ( What is TXYZ.AI? ) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower ( What are Influence Flowers? ) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender ( What is CORE? ) IArxiv recommender toggle IArxiv Recommender ( What is IArxiv? ) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs . Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax ( What is MathJax? ) We gratefully acknowledge support from our major funders , member institutions , and all contributors. About · Help · Contact · Subscribe · Copyright · Privacy · Accessibility · Operational Status (opens in new tab)

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