GW151226: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a 22-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence

The LIGO Scientific Collaboration; the Virgo Collaboration

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.241103

paper

GW151226: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a 22-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence

arXiv:1606.04855 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.241103

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 5 $σ$ . 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 $3. 4_{- 0.9}^{+ 0.7} \times 1 0^{- 22}$ . 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 $44 0_{- 190}^{+ 180}$ Mpc corresponding to a redshift $0.0 9_{- 0.04}^{+ 0.03}$ . All uncertainties define a 90 % credible interval. This second gravitational-wave observation provides improved constraints on stellar populations and on deviations from general relativity.

14 pages, 5 figures

GW151226: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a 22-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence

Abstract

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