GWTC-1: A Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the First and Second Observing Runs
Abstract
We present the results from three gravitational-wave searches for coalescing compact binaries with component masses above 1 M⊙ during the first and second observing runs of the advanced gravitational-wave detector network. During the first observing run (O 1 ), from September 12, 2015 to January 19, 2016, gravitational waves from three binary black hole mergers were detected. The second observing run (O 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 18.6-0.7+3.2 M⊙ and 84.4-11.1+15.8 M⊙ and range in distance between 320-110+120 and 2840-1360+1400 Mpc . 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 110 -3840 Gpc-3 y-1 for binary neutron stars and 9.7 -101 Gpc-3 y-1 for binary black holes assuming fixed population distributions and determine a neutron star-black hole merger rate 90% upper limit of 610 Gpc-3 y-1 .
- Publication:
-
Physical Review X
- Pub Date:
- July 2019
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevX.9.031040
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1811.12907
- Bibcode:
- 2019PhRvX...9c1040A
- Keywords:
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- Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena;
- Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics;
- General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
- E-Print:
- Total: 49 pages and 17 figures. Strain data are available from the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center at https://doi.org/10.7935/82H3-HH23. Figures, data behind the figures, including posterior samples, are available from https://dcc.ligo.org/LIGO-P1800307/public