LIGO Scientific Collaboration | Virgo Collaboration | 2018 Dec 03
The observatories are also releasing their first catalog of gravitational-wave events
On Saturday, December 1, scientists attending the Gravitational Wave Physics and Astronomy Workshop in College Park, Maryland, presented new results from the National Science Foundation's LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) and the European- based VIRGO gravitational-wave detector regarding their searches for coalescing cosmic objects, such as pairs of black holes and pairs of neutron stars. The LIGO and Virgo collaborations have now confidently detected gravitational waves from a total of 10 stellar-mass binary black hole mergers and one merger of neutron stars, which are the dense, spherical remains of stellar explosions. Six of the black hole merger events had been reported before, while four are newly announced.
- The masses of stellar remnants are measured in many different ways. This graphic shows the masses for black holes detected through electromagnetic observations (purple); the black holes measured by gravitational-wave observations from LIGO and Virgo (blue); neutron stars measured with electromagnetic observations (yellow); and the masses of the neutron stars that merged in an event called GW170817, which were detected in gravitational waves (orange). (Credit: LIGO-Virgo/Frank Elavsky/Northwestern)
From September 12, 2015, to January 19, 2016, during the first LIGO observing run since undergoing upgrades in a program called Advanced LIGO, gravitational waves from three binary black hole mergers were detected. The second observing run, which lasted from November 30, 2016, to August 25, 2017, yielded one binary neutron star merger and seven additional binary black hole mergers, including the four new gravitational-wave events being reported now. The new events are known as GW170729, GW170809, GW170818, and GW170823, in reference to the dates they were detected.
All of the events are included in a new catalog, also released Saturday, with some of the events breaking records. ...
LIGO & VIRGO Announce Four New Gravitational-Wave Detections
Albert Einstein Institute | Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics | 2018 Dec 03
Gravitational Waves Shed Light on Population of Black Holes
Northwestern University | 2018 Dec 03
Four New Gravitational Wave Events from Black Hole Mergers
University of Maryland | CMNS | 2018 Dec 03
Scientists Detect Biggest Known Black-Hole Collision
Australian National University | 2018 Dec 03
Four New Gravitational Wave Detections Announced
Science & Technology Facilities Council, UK | 2018 Dec 03
GWTC-1: A Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers Observed by LIGO and
Virgo during the First and Second Observing Runs ~ LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration
- arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1811.12907 > 30 Nov 2018
of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo ~ LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration
- arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1811.12940 > 30 Nov 2018