A more stringent constraint on the mass ratio of binary neutron star merger GW170817

Recently, the LIGO-Virgo collaboration reported their first detection of gravitational wave (GW) signals from a low mass compact binary merger GW170817, which is most likely due to a double neutron star (NS) merger. With the GW signals only, the chirp mass of the binary is precisely constrained to $1.188_{-0.002}^{+0.004}{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$, but the mass ratio is loosely constrained in the range $0.4-1$, so that a very rough estimation of the individual NS masses ($0.86{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }<M_1<1.36{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$ and $1.36{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }<M_2<2.26{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$) was obtained. Here we propose that if one can constrain the dynamical ejecta mass through performing kilonova modeling of the optical/IR data, by utilizing an empirical relation between the dynamical ejecta mass and the mass ratio of NS binaries, one may place a more stringent constraint on the mass ratio of the system. For instance, considering that the red “kilonova” component is powered by the dynamical ejecta, we reach a tight constraint on the mass ratio in the range of $0.46-0.59$. Alternatively, if the blue “kilonova” component is powered by the dynamical ejecta, the mass ratio would be constrained in the range of $0.53-0.67$. Overall, such a multi-messenger approach could narrow down the mass ratio of GW170817 system to the range of $0.46-0.67$, which gives a more precise estimation of the individual NS mass than pure GW signal analysis, i.e. $0.90{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }<M_1<1.16{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$ and $1.61~{\rm M_{\odot}}<M_2<2.11~{\rm M_{\odot}}$.