5 ms·
Is this paper mirrored anywhere else yet? The Phys. Rev. Letters site appears to be a bit overloaded!
by AliCollins 11y ago
Is this paper mirrored anywhere else yet? The Phys. Rev. Letters site appears to be a bit overloaded!
- mhandley 11y agoHere'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.
- AliCollins 11y agoThanks...but it was the rest of the paper itself I was wanting to look at! Trying to download the pdf...along with a fair few other from the slowness of the site.
- dhimes 11y agoSimultaneously? Are we sure? (Joking, kind of...)
- yodon 11y agoThat's some serious history of physics nerd funny - it's reference to a very embarrassing failure to include time zone discrepancies when analyzing some of the first gravity wave data back in the 1960's
- xenophonf 11y agoJust to add a sense of scale, the co-moving distance to that back hole merge is roughly 1/60th the diameter of the observable universe!
- qubex 11y agoI 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.
- selimthegrim 11y agoI think that's three solar masses.
- qubex 11y agoMy bad, you're right — my astonishment has risen by orders of magnitude.
- selimthegrim 11y agoIntermediate mass black holes are 100 to 1 million solar masses.
- dahart 11y agoI understand frequency, SNR and significance. The other numbers are mysterious to me; anyone who understands the entirety of this abstract care to explain what the other numbers mean?
- TheOtherHobbes 11y agoPossibly simpler than it looks. 410Mpc = 410 megaparsecs, which is about 1.3 billion light years 62M⊙ = 62 x the mass of the sun The values have 90% error bars: 62+4−4M⊙ = 62 +/-4 solar masses As the comments below say, the abstract says that three whole solar masses were converted to gravity waves when the black holes merged. I'm not sure what the state of research into black hole mergers is, but the science that explains that number is going to be really interesting.
- octoploid 11y agohttp://docdro.id/w5fMxjO http://docdro.id/w5fMxjO
- AliCollins 11y agoThank you!
- peppery 11y agoWoohoo, thank you!