Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger

Authors

B. P. Abbott
R. AbbottFollow
T. D. AbbottFollow
M. R. Abernathy
Teviet Creighton, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyFollow
Mario C. Diaz, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyFollow
Soma Mukherjee, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyFollow
Volker Quetschke, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyFollow
Malik Rakhmanov, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyFollow
Joseph D. Romano, The University of Texas Rio Grande ValleyFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-11-2016

Abstract

On September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory simultaneously observed a transient gravitational-wave signal. The signal sweeps upwards in frequency from 35 to 250 Hz with a peak gravitational-wave strain of 1.0×10-21. It matches the waveform predicted by general relativity for the inspiral and merger of a pair of black holes and the ringdown of the resulting single black hole. The signal was observed with a matched-filter signal-to-noise ratio of 24 and a false alarm rate estimated to be less than 1 event per 203 000 years, equivalent to a significance greater than 5.1σ. The source lies at a luminosity distance of 410-180+160 Mpc corresponding to a redshift z=0.09-0.04+0.03. In the source frame, the initial black hole masses are 36-4+5M⊙ and 29-4+4M⊙, and the final black hole mass is 62-4+4M⊙, with 3.0-0.5+0.5M⊙c2 radiated in gravitational waves. All uncertainties define 90% credible intervals. These observations demonstrate the existence of binary stellar-mass black hole systems. This is the first direct detection of gravitational waves and the first observation of a binary black hole merger.

Comments

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.

Original version available at: http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102

Recommended Citation

Abbott, Benjamin P., Richard Abbott, TDe Abbott, M. R. Abernathy, Fausto Acernese, Kendall Ackley, Carl Adams et al. "Observation of gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger." Physical review letters 116, no. 6 (2016): 061102.http://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Publication Title

Physical Review Letters

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102