Steven A. Rodney edited LensingModels.tex  over 8 years ago

Commit id: 9f3af14d2c0b0534973921dec7a8b803cbb3330f

deletions | additions      

       

From each model we extract two time delay predictions. First we consider the \spockone\ event, which appeared in January 2014 in host image 11.2. That same transient episode must have also appeared in the adjacent host galaxy image 11.1, but at a different time, due primarily to the \citet{Shapiro:1964} delay. We ask when that event should have been observed in the adjacent host image 11.1, and label this as the "\spockone-11.1" delay. The second prediction extracted from each model is the "\spocktwo-11.2 delay": the time difference between the August 2014 \spocktwo\ event and its expected appearance in host image 11.2. If the two events are actually two images of the same physical episode, appearing separately only because of gravitational lensing, then both of these time delays should be consistent with the observed 8 month separation between the January and August 2014 appearances.   In fact, we find that none of the lensing models predict an 8 month time delay from image 11.1 to 11.2. This is represented in Figure~\ref{fig:SpockDelayPredictions}, where we have plotted the two transient events, along with shaded bars demarcating the time delay predictions of all models. The models are broadly consistent with each other, predicting that the lensing time delay from image 11.1 to 11.2 is on the order of $\pm$50 days, far short of the 238 day lag that we observed between \spockone\ and \spocktwo. From this we conclude that the two observed events are not gravitational echoes of a single explosive transient episode, but instead  must have originated as two distinct physical events in the source plane. We are left then with two possible scenarios: (a) the two events are not physically associated, in which case they may each  be the result of a separate  catastrophic explosion like a supernova or kilonova that would leave the progenitor system completely disrupted; or (b) the two events originated from the same astrophysical system, which must therefore be a source of recurrent explosive transient episodes. We evaluate physical systems that could match these two scenarios in the following sections.