Observing gravitational-wave transient GW150914 with minimal assumptions

(LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration)

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

141 Scopus citations

Abstract

The gravitational-wave signal GW150914 was first identified on September 14, 2015, by searches for short-duration gravitational-wave transients. These searches identify time-correlated transients in multiple detectors with minimal assumptions about the signal morphology, allowing them to be sensitive to gravitational waves emitted by a wide range of sources including binary black hole mergers. Over the observational period from September 12 to October 20, 2015, these transient searches were sensitive to binary black hole mergers similar to GW150914 to an average distance of ∼600 Mpc. In this paper, we describe the analyses that first detected GW150914 as well as the parameter estimation and waveform reconstruction techniques that initially identified GW150914 as the merger of two black holes. We find that the reconstructed waveform is consistent with the signal from a binary black hole merger with a chirp mass of ∼30 M and a total mass before merger of ∼70 M in the detector frame.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number122004
JournalPhysical Review D
Volume93
Issue number12
DOIs
StatePublished - Jun 7 2016

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Nuclear and High Energy Physics

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Observing gravitational-wave transient GW150914 with minimal assumptions'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this