GRB 170817A: a short GRB seen off-axis

The angular distribution of gamma-ray burst（GRB）jets is not yet clear.The observed luminosity of GRB 170817A is the lowest among all known short GRBs,which is best explained by the fact that our line of sight is outside of the jet opening angle,θ_（obs）〉θ_j,whereθ_（obs） is the angle between our line of sight and the jet axis.As inferred by gravitational wave observations,as well as radio and X-ray afterglow modeling of GRB 170817A,it is likely that θ_（obs）~20°–28°.In this work,we quantitatively consider two scenarios of angular energy distribution of GRB ejecta：a top-hat jet and a structured jet with a power law index s.For the top-hat jet model,we get a large θ_j（e.g.,θ_j〉10°）,a rather high local （i.e., z 〈 0.01） short GRB rate ~8–15×10~3 Gpc^（-3）yr~（-1（（estimated to be 90~1850 Gpc^（-3）yr^（-1） in Fong et al.）and an extremely high（on-axis,V（~500 ke V for a typical short GRB）.For the structured jet model,we use θ_（obs） to give limits on s and θ_j for typical on-axis luminosity of a short GRB（e.g.,10^（49）erg s（-1） 1051erg s（-1））,and a low on-axis luminosity case（e.g.,1049erg s（-1））gives more reasonable values of s.The structured jet model is more feasible for GRB170817A than the top-hat jet model due to the rather high local short GRB rate,and the extremely high on-axis E_（peak,0） almost rules out the top-hat jet model.GRB 170817A is likely a low on-axis luminosity GRB（1049erg s（-1））with a structured jet.

A magnetically driven origin for the low luminosity GRB 170817A associated with GW170817

The gamma-ray burst GR170817 A associated with GW170817 is subluminous and subenergetic compared with other typical short gamma-ray bursts. It may be due to a relativistic jet viewed off-axis, or a structured jet or cocoon emission. Giant flares from magnetars may possibly be ruled out.However, the luminosity and energetics of GRB 170817 A are coincident with those of magnetar giant flares. After the coalescence of a binary neutron star, a hypermassive neutron star may be formed. The hypermassive neutron star may have a magnetar-strength magnetic field. During the collapse of this hypermassive neutron star, magnetic field energy will also be released. This giant-flare-like event may explain the luminosity and energetics of GRB 170817 A. Bursts with similar luminosity and energetics are expected in future neutron star-neutron star or neutron star-black hole mergers.

Insight-HXMT observations of the first binary neutron star merger GW170817

Finding the electromagnetic （EM） counterpart of binary compact star merger, especially the binary neutron star （BNS） merger, is critically important for gravitational wave （GW） astronomy, cosmology and fundamental physics. On Aug. 17, 2017, Advanced LIGO and Fermi/GBM independently triggered the first BNS merger, GW170817, and its high energy EM counterpart, GRB 170817A, respectively, resulting in a global observation campaign covering gamma-ray, X-ray, UV, optical, IR, radio as well as neutrinos. The High Energy X-ray telescope （HE） onboard Insight-HXMT （Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope） is the unique high-energy gamma-ray telescope that monitored the entire GW localization area and especially the optical counterpart （SSS17a/AT2017gfo） with very large collection area （M000 cm2） and microsecond time resolution in 0.2-5 MeV. In addition, Insight-HXMT quickly implemented a Target of Opportunity （TOO） observation to scan the GW localization area for potential X-ray emission from the GW source. Although Insight-HXMT did not detect any significant high energy （0.2-5 MeV） radiation from GW170817, its observation helped to confirm the unexpected weak and soft nature of GRB 170817A. Meanwhile, Insight-HXMT/HE provides one of the most stringent constraints （-10-7 to 104 erg/cm2/s） for both GRB170817A and any other possible precursor or extended emissions in 0.2-5 MeV, which help us to better understand the properties of EM radiation from this BNS merger. Therefore the observation of Insight-HXMT constitutes an important chapter in the full context of multi-wavelength and multi-messenger observation of this historical GW event.