Physical Review Letters· 2016Q1
GW151226: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a 22-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence
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- Q1SCImago
- 2016year
Short summary
LIGO detected gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger (GW151226) on December 26, 2015, originating from two black holes of 14.2 and 7.5 solar masses, forming a final black hole of 20.8 solar masses.
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Key points
- LIGO detected gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger (GW151226) on December 26, 2015.
- The signal involved two black holes with initial masses of 14.2_{-3.7}^{+8.3} M 0282 ⊙ and 7.5_{-2.3}^{+2.3} M 0282 ⊙.
- The merger resulted in a final black hole of 20.8_{-1.7}^{+6.1} M 0282 ⊙.
- At least one component black hole had a spin greater than 0.2.
- The source is located at a luminosity distance of 440_{-190}^{+180} Mpc (redshift 0.09_{-0.04}^{+0.03}).
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
We report the observation of a gravitational-wave signal produced by the coalescence of two stellar-mass black holes. The signal, GW151226, was observed by the twin detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) on December 26, 2015 at 03:38:53 UTC. The signal was initially identified within 70 s by an online matched-filter search targeting binary coalescences. Subsequent off-line analyses recovered GW151226 with a network signal-to-noise ratio of 13 and a significance greater than 5σ. The signal persisted in the LIGO frequency band for approximately 1 s, increasing in frequency and amplitude over about 55 cycles from 35 to 450 Hz, and reached a peak gravitational strain of 3.4_{-0.9}^{+0.7}×10^{-22}. The inferred source-frame initial black hole masses are 14.2_{-3.7}^{+8.3}M_{⊙} and 7.5_{-2.3}^{+2.3}M_{⊙}, and the final black hole mass is 20.8_{-1.7}^{+6.1}M_{⊙}. We find that at least one of the component black holes has spin greater than 0.2. This source is located at a luminosity distance of 440_{-190}^{+180} Mpc corresponding to a redshift of 0.09_{-0.04}^{+0.03}. All uncertainties define a 90% credible interval. This second gravitational-wave observation provides improved constraints on stellar populations and on deviations from general relativity.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Physical Review Letters, 2016 · DOI ↗
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Field: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy and AstrophysicsPhysics and Astronomy