Abstract
The first observational run of the Advanced LIGO detectors, from September 12, 2015 to January 19, 2016, saw the first detections of gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers. In this paper we present full results from a search for binary black hole merger signals with total masses up to $100 M_\odot$ and detailed implications from our observations of these systems. Our search, based on general-relativistic models of gravitational wave signals from binary black hole systems, unambiguously identified two signals, GW150914 and GW151226, with a significance of greater than $5\sigma$ over the observing period. It also identified a third possible signal, LVT151012, with substantially lower significance, and with an 87% probability of being of astrophysical origin. We provide detailed estimates of the parameters of the observed systems. Both GW150914 and GW151226 provide an unprecedented opportunity to study the two-body motion of a compact-object binary in the large velocity, highly nonlinear regime. We do not observe any deviations from general relativity, and place improved empirical bounds on several high-order post-Newtonian coefficients. From our observations we infer stellar-mass binary black hole merger rates lying in the range $9-240 \mathrm{Gpc}^{-3} \mathrm{yr}^{-1}$. These observations are beginning to inform astrophysical predictions of binary black hole formation rates, and indicate that future observing runs of the Advanced detector network will yield many more gravitational wave detections.
Highlights
The first observing run (O1) of the Advanced LIGO detectors took place from September 12, 2015, to January 19, 2016
Largely independent, analyses have been implemented to search for stellar-mass binary black holes (BBHs) signals in the data of O1: PyCBC [2,3,4] and GstLAL [5,6,7]
Both these analyses employ matched filtering [52,53,54,55,56,57,58,59,60] with waveforms given by models based on general relativity [8,9] to search for gravitational waves from binary neutron stars, BBHs, and neutron star–black hole binaries
Summary
The first observing run (O1) of the Advanced LIGO detectors took place from September 12, 2015, to January 19, 2016. We report the results of a matched-filter search using relativistic models of BBH waveforms during the whole of the first Advanced LIGO observing run. The observed amplitudes and relative phase of the signal in the two Advanced LIGO detectors can be used to further restrict the sky location and infer the distance to the source and the binary orientation. We perform a similar test on GW151226 Since this source is of lower mass than GW150914, the observed waveform lasts for many more cycles in the detector data, allowing us to better constrain the PN coefficients that describe the evolution of the binary through the inspiral phase. Appendixes C and D provide details of the methods used to infer merger rates and mass distributions, respectively
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