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GWTC-1: A Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the First and Second Observing Runs

B. P. Abbott et al. (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration)
Phys. Rev. X 9, 031040 – Published 4 September 2019

Abstract

We present the results from three gravitational-wave searches for coalescing compact binaries with component masses above 1M during the first and second observing runs of the advanced gravitational-wave detector network. During the first observing run (O1), from September 12, 2015 to January 19, 2016, gravitational waves from three binary black hole mergers were detected. The second observing run (O2), which ran from November 30, 2016 to August 25, 2017, saw the first detection of gravitational waves from a binary neutron star inspiral, in addition to the observation of gravitational waves from a total of seven binary black hole mergers, four of which we report here for the first time: GW170729, GW170809, GW170818, and GW170823. For all significant gravitational-wave events, we provide estimates of the source properties. The detected binary black holes have total masses between 18.60.7+3.2M and 84.411.1+15.8M and range in distance between 320110+120 and 28401360+1400Mpc. No neutron star–black hole mergers were detected. In addition to highly significant gravitational-wave events, we also provide a list of marginal event candidates with an estimated false-alarm rate less than 1 per 30 days. From these results over the first two observing runs, which include approximately one gravitational-wave detection per 15 days of data searched, we infer merger rates at the 90% confidence intervals of 1103840Gpc3y1 for binary neutron stars and 9.7101Gpc3y1 for binary black holes assuming fixed population distributions and determine a neutron star–black hole merger rate 90% upper limit of 610Gpc3y1.

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  • Received 14 December 2018
  • Revised 27 March 2019

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.9.031040

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

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Popular Summary

Gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of spacetime, allow researchers to investigate compact celestial objects such as black holes and to explain the origin of some gamma-ray bursts, which are among the most energetic electromagnetic outbursts in the Universe. Since 2015, the LIGO Scientific and Virgo Collaborations have detected 11 gravitational-wave signals, in addition to a number of marginal event candidates. Here, we present the first gravitational-wave transient catalog, GWTC-1, which describes the properties of every detection to date.

The 11 significant detections in the catalog are associated with mergers between extraordinarily dense objects: ten are from mergers of two massive black holes and one is from a merger of two neutron stars. Researchers analyzed each of the events in detail to determine the properties of the source. We use state-of-the-art theoretical and numerical general relativistic gravitational-wave models to determine the masses, spins, and tidal deformations for the neutron star event, as well as parameters related to the location and orientation of the binary. The observation of ten binary black hole mergers and one binary neutron star merger allows us to estimate the rate at which these binaries merge in the Universe. We also present 14 marginal event candidates whose astrophysical origin cannot be definitively ruled out.

The gravitational-wave catalog allows physicists and astronomers to analyze the accompanying publicly available data, investigate the underlying populations, perform tests of general relativity, and pursue entirely new avenues of research.

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Vol. 9, Iss. 3 — July - September 2019

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