Characterization of transient noise in Advanced LIGO relevant to gravitational wave signal GW150914

Abstract

On 14 September 2015, a gravitational wave signal from a coalescing black hole binary system was observed by the Advanced LIGO detectors. This paper describes the transient noise backgrounds used to determine the significance of the event (designated GW150914) and presents the results of investigations into potential correlated or uncorrelated sources of transient noise in the detectors around the time of the event. The detectors were operating nominally at the time of GW150914. We have ruled out environmental influences and non-Gaussian instrument noise at either LIGO detector as the cause of the observed gravitational wave signal.

Post-Newtonian templates for binary black-hole inspirals: the effect of the horizon fluxes and the secular change in the black-hole masses and spins

“…It should be noted that our conclusion of figure 7 is therefore valid only for this specific choice of the Advanced LIGO's frequency range. Indeed, we see that the mismatch for the LISA case plotted in figure 8 shows the different dependence on the total mass m. For example, the mismatch from Ψ F2 H,all for two configurations m = {10 5 , 10 6 }M ⊙ are almost identical to each other (within the orderof-magnitude) and is significant in the almost equal-mass regime ν 0.19, while that for the configuration m = 10 4 M ⊙ is smaller by the factor of O (10). Recall that the templates used in the LISA case is terminated near the ISCO of Kerr spacetime, including the …”

Counting black holes: The cosmic stellar remnant population and implications for LIGO

“…This first gravitational wave event, GW150914, appears to have been caused by the merger to two fairly massive (∼ 30M ) black holes. Subsequent detections of a BBH mergers (GW151226 and GW170104, Abbott et al, 2016cAbbott et al, , 2017) and a candidate BBH event (LVT151012, Abbott et al, 2016a) have allowed more robust estimates of the local BBH merger rate density and have confirmed the existence of black holes involved in these mergers with masses that range from 7.5 to 36 M .…”

Black hole mass function from gravitational wave measurements

“…X-ray observations have resulted in the detections of X-ray transients from binaries with a BH and a companion star that extend only as far away as NGC 300 (just in the vicinity of the Local Group, at a distance of 1.8 Mpc [63]), with the majority of transients detected inside the Milky Way. Looking forward, with gravitational wave measurements we will be able to probe merger events of BH binaries at cosmological distances up to Gpcs, or in terms of redshift up to z ∼ 0.3 with the current instrumental sensitivity [64] and up to z 1 with the expected advanced LIGO design [65]. In the future, experiments such as the Einstein Telescope (ET) may reach detection thresholds corresponding to redshifts z 10 [66].…”