
Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
9-2019
Abstract
We present the results from three gravitational-wave searches for coalescing compact binaries with component masses above 1ββπβ during the first and second observing runs of the advanced gravitational-wave detector network. During the first observing run (πβ’1), from September 12, 2015 to January 19, 2016, gravitational waves from three binary black hole mergers were detected. The second observing run (πβ’2), 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 18.6+3.2β0.7ββπβ and 84.4+15.8β11.1ββπβ and range in distance between 320+120β110 and 2840+1400β1360ββMpc. No neutron starβblack 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 110β3840ββGpcβ3βyβ1 for binary neutron stars and 9.7β101ββGpcβ3βyβ1 for binary black holes assuming fixed population distributions and determine a neutron starβblack hole merger rate 90% upper limit of 610ββGpcβ3βyβ1.
Recommended Citation
Abbott, Benjamin P., Richard Abbott, TDea Abbott, S. Abraham, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, C. Adams et al. "GWTC-1: a gravitational-wave transient catalog of compact binary mergers observed by LIGO and Virgo during the first and second observing runs." Physical Review X 9, no. 3 (2019): 031040. https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.9.031040
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Publication Title
Physical Review X
DOI
10.1103/PhysRevX.9.031040
Comments
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 articleβs title, journal citation, and DOI.
Published by the American Physical Society