LIGO Document G1901973-v4
- Having recently celebrated the fourth anniversary of the first detection of gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger, the LIGO and Virgo detectors have collected an impressive census of compact binary mergers in the local universe. By the end of the second observing run in August 2017 the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and Virgo Collaboration claimed a total of 10 binary black hole mergers and one binary neutron star merger. The third observing run began in April 2019, and during the first six months the collaborations alerted the astronomical community of 33 merger candidates. The preliminary classifications of these events include 21 binary black hole merger candidates, 4 neutron star black hole merger candidates, and 4 binary neutron star candidates. I will present some of what ground-based gravitational wave astronomy has taught us about compact binaries over the last four years, and what may lie ahead.
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