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

Creators: Abbott, B. P.; Abbott, R.; Adhikari, R. X.; Anderson, S. B.; Arai, K.; Araya, M. C.; Barayoga, J. C.; Barish, B. C.; Berger, B. K.; Billingsley, G.; Blackburn, J. K.; Bork, R.; Brooks, A. F.; Brunett, S.; Cahillane, C.; Callister, T.; Cepeda, C. B.; Couvares, P.; Coyne, D. C.; Dergachev, V.; Drever, R. W. P.; Ehrens, P.; Eichholz, J.; Etzel, T.; Gossan, S. E.; Gushwa, K. E.; Gustafson, E. K.; Hall, E. D.; Heptonstall, A. W.; Isi, M.; Kanner, J. B.; Kells, W.; Kondrashov, V.; Korth, W. Z.; Kozak, D. B.; Lazzarini, A.; Lewis, J. B.; Maros, E.; Marx, J. N.; McIntyre, G.; McIver, J.; Meshkov, S.; Pedraza, M.; Perreca, A.; Price, L. R.; Quintero, E. A.; Reitze, D. H.; Robertson, N. A.; Rollins, J. G.; Sachdev, S.; Sanchez, E. J.; Schmidt, P.; Singer, A.; Smith, N. D.; Smith, R. J. E.; Taylor, R.; Thirugnanasambandam, M. P.; Torrie, C. I.; Vajente, G.; Vass, S.; Wallace, L.; Weinstein, A. J.; Williams, R. D.; Wipf, C. C.; Yamamoto, H.; Zhang, L.; Zucker, M. E.; Zweizig, J.; Chen, Y.; Engels, W.; Schmidt, P.; Vallisneri, M.; Hemberger, D.; Scheel, M.; Szilágyi, B.; Teukolsky, S.; LIGO Scientific Collaboration; Virgo Collaboration

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^(+0.7)_(-0.9) ×10^(-22). The inferred source-frame initial black hole masses are 14.2^(+8.3)_(-3.7) M⊙ and 7.5^(+2.3)_(-2.3) M⊙, and the final black hole mass is 20.8^(+6.1)_(-1.7) 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^(+180)_(-190) Mpc corresponding to a redshift of 0.09^(+0.03)_(-0.04). All uncertainties define a 90% credible interval. This second gravitational-wave observation provides improved constraints on stellar populations and on deviations from general relativity.

Additional Information

© 2015 Published by the American Physical Society.This article is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Received 31 May 2016; published 15 June 2016. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) for the construction and operation of the LIGO Laboratory and Advanced LIGO as well as the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) of the United Kingdom, the Max Planck Society (MPS), and the State of Niedersachsen/Germany for support of the construction of Advanced LIGO and construction and operation of the GEO600 detector. Additional support for Advanced LIGO was provided by the Australian Research Council. The authors gratefully acknowledge the Italian Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), the French Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the Foundation for Fundamental Research on Matter supported by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, for the construction and operation of the Virgo detector and the creation and support of the EGO consortium. The authors also gratefully acknowledge research support from these agencies as well as by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research of India, Department of Science and Technology, India, Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB), India, Ministry of Human Resource Development, India, the Spanish Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, the Conselleria d'Economia i Competitivitat and Conselleria d'Educació, Cultura i Universitats of the Govern de les Illes Balears, the National Science Centre of Poland, the European Commission, the Royal Society, the Scottish Funding Council, the Scottish Universities Physics Alliance, the Hungarian Scientific Research Fund (OTKA), the Lyon Institute of Origins (LIO), the National Research Foundation of Korea, Industry Canada and the Province of Ontario through the Ministry of Economic Development and Innovation, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, the Brazilian Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Russian Foundation for Basic Research, the Leverhulme Trust, the Research Corporation, Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Taiwan, and the Kavli Foundation. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the NSF, STFC, MPS, INFN, CNRS and the State of Niedersachsen/Germany for provision of computational resources. This article has been assigned the document numbers LIGO-P151226 and VIR-0285A-16.

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