Observing gravitational-wave transient GW150914 with minimal assumptions

Document #:

LIGO-P1500229-v31

Document type:

P - Publications

Abstract:

The gravitational-wave signal GW150914 was first identified on Sept 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 12th to October 20th 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.

Files in Document:

• GW150914_burst.pdf (942.0 kB)

Other Files:

• GW150914_burst.tar (3.8 MB)
• datarelease_burst_gw150914.tar.gz (14.4 MB)

Topics:

• GW Bursts

Author Groups:

• LVC

Keywords:

GW150914

Notes and Changes:

Version accepted by PRD

Related Documents:

• LIGO-P150914: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger

Referenced by:

• LIGO-P150914-v14: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger

Journal References:

Published in Phys Rev D vol. 93 pg. 122004.

Publication Information:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/arXiv:1602.03843