Detection of GW151226
On December 26, 2015 at 09:09AM IST the LIGO detectors in Hanford, Washington and Livingston, Louisiana detected a signal from the coalescence of two black holes, with masses 14 and 8 times the mass of the sun, merging into a more massive, rapidly rotating black hole that is 21 times the mass of the sun. The event happened 1.4 billion years ago, lasted in LIGO's frequency band for about a second and released about 1 solar mass worth of energy in that short period.
Specific contributions by IUCAA researchers
- Matched Filtering
- A key analysis technique needed for this detection, pioneered at IUCAA
- Several refinements to the original analysis (e.g., to include multiple detectors)
- Estimation of Black Hole Binary parameters
- In improving the estimation accuracy of Black Hole spins
- Efficient methods for handling instrumental artefacts
- Electromagnetic followup with CZTI instrument onboard AstroSat
- Towards building a LIGO detector in India
- To dramatically improve the accuracy for estimation of location and orientation
- Developing search algorithms for Stochastic backgrounds
- A stochastic background from binary black-holes may be detectable by advanced LIGO
Parameters of the black holes
Masses:
Masses of primary black holes: 14 and 8 (solar units)
Mass and spin of the merged BH: 21 (solar units) and 0.74 (dimensionless)
Distance of event:
440 Megaparsec or 1.4 billion Light Years (1.357698136e+22 km)
Gravitational Wave signal:
Date of Arrival: 26th Dec 2015
Time of Arrival: 09:09 AM IST
Energy released in the form of GWs: equivalent of 1 solar mass (remember E = mc2)!
Watch the LIGO-Virgo Press Conference
Wednesday, June 15, 2016 10:15 AM US PDT/1:15 PM US EDT
The international collaborators will comment on their ongoing research, at their first press conference since the historic observation of gravitational waves.
- See more at: http://www.ligo.org/news/index.php#media-advisory
