
Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger - specialp
http://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102
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japhyr
I'm teaching a high school science class right now called "Are We Alone?" It's
a survey class of what kind of objects exist in the Universe, and how we're
scientifically attempting to answer the question of whether life exists
anywhere other than Earth.

It's going to be fun sharing this with the class today!

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specialp
We ramped up capacity. Massive traffic! Also, if you are looking for a good
article on this from a field expert, we have a Physics Viewpoint on it here:
[http://physics.aps.org/articles/v9/17](http://physics.aps.org/articles/v9/17)

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mutagen
I also enjoyed the article on the LIGO site at
[http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-
GW150914/index.php](http://www.ligo.org/science/Publication-
GW150914/index.php)

Solid coverage without the fluff.

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rubidium
LIGO's mirror:
[https://dcc.ligo.org/public/0122/P150914/014/LIGO-P150914%3A...](https://dcc.ligo.org/public/0122/P150914/014/LIGO-P150914%3ADetection_of_GW150914.pdf)

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rubidium
It's a wonderful data and a well-written paper. Really just remarkable.

They have a few minor events that seem less likely to lead to anything, but to
capture a big one like this at the start of 16 days of collection is a gift.

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java-man
Thank you for posting a direct link to the paper!

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dskhatri
B.P. Abbott must be getting a lot of inquiries :)

Edit: Abbott is, when alphabetically arranged, the first name of a long list
of authors.

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AliCollins
Is this paper mirrored anywhere else yet? The Phys. Rev. Letters site appears
to be a bit overloaded!

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mhandley
Here's the abstract:

On September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC the two detectors of the Laser
Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory simultaneously observed a
transient gravitational-wave signal. The signal sweeps upwards in frequency
from 35 to 250 Hz with a peak gravitational-wave strain of 1.0×10−21. It
matches the waveform predicted by general relativity for the inspiral and
merger of a pair of black holes and the ringdown of the resulting single black
hole. The signal was observed with a matched-filter signal-to-noise ratio of
24 and a false alarm rate estimated to be less than 1 event per 203 000 years,
equivalent to a significance greater than 5.1σ. The source lies at a
luminosity distance of 410+160−180 Mpc corresponding to a redshift
z=0.09+0.03−0.04. In the source frame, the initial black hole masses are
36+5−4M⊙ and 29+4−4M⊙, and the final black hole mass is 62+4−4M⊙, with
3.0+0.5−0.5M⊙c2 radiated in gravitational waves. All uncertainties define 90%
credible intervals. These observations demonstrate the existence of binary
stellar-mass black hole systems. This is the first direct detection of
gravitational waves and the first observation of a binary black hole merger.

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qubex
I dabbled with GR many years ago, so I'd have been surprised if this hadn't
turned up sooner or later... but My God, look at that... three earth masses-
worth of radiated gravitational energy, I can hardly fathom that.

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selimthegrim
I think that's three solar masses.

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qubex
My bad, you're right — my astonishment has risen by orders of magnitude.

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selimthegrim
Intermediate mass black holes are 100 to 1 million solar masses.

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cozzyd
wow, I hope some of my APS member dues go to improving the servers!

