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Journal ArticleDOI

GW170817: observation of gravitational waves from a binary neutron star inspiral

B. P. Abbott1, Richard J. Abbott1, T. D. Abbott2, Fausto Acernese3  +1131 moreInstitutions (123)
16 Oct 2017-Physical Review Letters (American Physical Society)-Vol. 119, Iss: 16, pp 161101-161101
TL;DR: The association of GRB 170817A, detected by Fermi-GBM 1.7 s after the coalescence, corroborates the hypothesis of a neutron star merger and provides the first direct evidence of a link between these mergers and short γ-ray bursts.
Abstract: On August 17, 2017 at 12∶41:04 UTC the Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo gravitational-wave detectors made their first observation of a binary neutron star inspiral. The signal, GW170817, was detected with a combined signal-to-noise ratio of 32.4 and a false-alarm-rate estimate of less than one per 8.0×10^{4} years. We infer the component masses of the binary to be between 0.86 and 2.26 M_{⊙}, in agreement with masses of known neutron stars. Restricting the component spins to the range inferred in binary neutron stars, we find the component masses to be in the range 1.17-1.60 M_{⊙}, with the total mass of the system 2.74_{-0.01}^{+0.04}M_{⊙}. The source was localized within a sky region of 28 deg^{2} (90% probability) and had a luminosity distance of 40_{-14}^{+8} Mpc, the closest and most precisely localized gravitational-wave signal yet. The association with the γ-ray burst GRB 170817A, detected by Fermi-GBM 1.7 s after the coalescence, corroborates the hypothesis of a neutron star merger and provides the first direct evidence of a link between these mergers and short γ-ray bursts. Subsequent identification of transient counterparts across the electromagnetic spectrum in the same location further supports the interpretation of this event as a neutron star merger. This unprecedented joint gravitational and electromagnetic observation provides insight into astrophysics, dense matter, gravitation, and cosmology.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The cross-correlation of gravitational wave strain with upcoming galaxy surveys probes theories of gravity in a new way as mentioned in this paper, enabling testing the theory of gravity by combining the effects from both gravitational lensing of gravitational waves and the propagation of the gravitational waves in space-time.
Abstract: The cross-correlation of gravitational wave strain with upcoming galaxy surveys probes theories of gravity in a new way. This method enables testing the theory of gravity by combining the effects from both gravitational lensing of gravitational waves and the propagation of gravitational waves in space–time. We find that within 10 yr the combination of the Advanced LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) and VIRGO (Virgo interferometer) detector networks with planned galaxy surveys should detect weak gravitational lensing of gravitational waves in the low-redshift Universe (z < 0.5). With the next-generation gravitational wave experiments such as Voyager, LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna), Cosmic Explorer, and the Einstein Telescope, we can extend this test of the theory of gravity to larger redshifts by exploiting the synergies between electromagnetic wave and gravitational wave probes.

95 citations


Cites background or methods from "GW170817: observation of gravitatio..."

  • ...Ground based gravitational wave detectors such as LIGO-US Abbott et al. (2017a) , Virgo Acernese et al. (2015), KAGRA Akutsu et al. (2019), LIGO-India Unnikrishnan (2013) and space based gravitational wave detector such as LISA Klein et al. (2016) are going to probe a large range of cosmic redshift…...

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  • ...Ground based gravitational wave detectors such as LIGO-US Abbott et al. (2017a) , Virgo Acernese et al. (2015), KAGRA Akutsu et al. (2019), LIGO-India Unnikrishnan (2013) and space based gravitational wave detector such as LISA Klein et al. (2016) are going to probe a large range of cosmic redshift 0 < z ....

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  • ...…wave strain from astrophysical gravitational wave sources which are going to be measured from upcoming gravitational wave observatories such as Advanced-LIGO Abbott et al. (2017a), Virgo Acernese et al. (2015), KAGRA Akutsu et al. (2019), LIGO-India Unnikrishnan (2013) and LISA Klein et al. (2016)....

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  • ...The exact event rates of these binary mergers are not yet known and are predicted from the current observation of the gravitational wave events Abbott et al. (2016b, 2017b)....

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  • ...In the future, with ground-based gravitational wave experiments such as Voyager, Cosmic Explorer Abbott et al. (2017a) and the Einstein Telescope1, we will be able to probe gravitational wave sources up to a redshift z = 8 and z = 100 respectively....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare the observations of GRB170817 with those of the regular population of short GRBs (sGRBs), and show that an order unity fraction of NS mergers result in sGRB jets that breakout of the surrounding ejecta.
Abstract: The joint detection of gravitational waves (GWs) and $\gamma$-rays from a binary neutron-star (NS) merger provided a unique view of off-axis GRBs and an independent measurement of the NS merger rate. Comparing the observations of GRB170817 with those of the regular population of short GRBs (sGRBs), we show that an order unity fraction of NS mergers result in sGRB jets that breakout of the surrounding ejecta. We argue that the luminosity function of sGRBs, peaking at $\approx 2\times 10^{52}\, \mbox{erg s}^{-1}$, is likely an intrinsic property of the sGRB central engine and that sGRB jets are typically narrow with opening angles $\theta_0 \approx 0.1$. We perform Monte Carlo simulations to examine models for the structure and efficiency of the prompt emission in off axis sGRBs. We find that only a small fraction ($\sim 0.01-0.1$) of NS mergers detectable by LIGO/VIRGO in GWs is expected to be also detected in prompt $\gamma$-rays and that GW170817-like events are very rare. For a NS merger rate of $\sim 1500$ Gpc$^{-3}$ yr$^{-1}$, as inferred from GW170817, we expect within the next decade up to $\sim 12$ joint detections with off-axis GRBs for structured jet models and just $\sim 1$ for quasi-spherical cocoon models where $\gamma$-rays are the result of shock breakout. Given several joint detections and the rates of their discoveries, the different structure models can be distinguished. In addition the existence of a cocoon with a reservoir of thermal energy may be observed directly in the UV, given a sufficiently rapid localisation of the GW source.

95 citations


Cites background or methods from "GW170817: observation of gravitatio..."

  • ...Email: paz.beniamini@gmail.com genitors of sGRBs and the main source of r-process elements remained somewhat uncertain until the recent discovery of the kilonova AT2017gfo (Tanvir et al. 2017) and GRB170817 (Goldstein et al. 2017), accompanying the NS-NS merger event GW170817 (Abbott et al. 2017)....

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  • ...Here, we show that by combining this knowledge with the unique constraint from GW170817 we can probe these questions in greater detail, thus significantly improving our understanding of these issues....

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  • ...We impose a cut-off at the maximum distance for which NS mergers can be detected in GWs with current capabilities, dmax = 218 Mpc (Abbott et al. 2017)6; later on we test the dependence of the results on 5 This is compared to the available energy along the line of sight to the observer....

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  • ...While the joint discovery of GW170817 and GRB170817 has helped to constrain the fraction of successful GRB jets, their opening angles, and their luminosity function as discussed above, the angular structure of GRB jets and the nature of their γ-ray emission are still uncertain....

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  • ...In §2 we revisit the rate and luminosity function of sGRBs and show that the latest results from GW170817 strongly constrain: the fraction of sGRBs accompanying NS-NS mergers, the opening angles of sGRBs, and the interpretation of their luminosity function....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is shown that, in spite of its coarse angular resolution and short duration of observation, LIGO can detect the GW lensing induced by small structures, in particular by compact dark matter (DM) or the primordial black hole of 10-10^{5} M_{⊙}, which remains an interesting DM candidate.
Abstract: Utilizing gravitational-wave (GW) lensing opens a new way to understand the small-scale structure of the Universe. We show that, in spite of its coarse angular resolution and short duration of observation, LIGO can detect the GW lensing induced by small structures, in particular by compact dark matter (DM) or the primordial black hole of $10--{10}^{5}\text{ }\text{ }{M}_{\ensuremath{\bigodot}}$, which remains an interesting DM candidate. The lensing is detected through GW frequency chirping, creating the natural and rapid change of lensing patterns: frequency-dependent amplification and modulation of GW waveforms. As a highest-frequency GW detector, LIGO is a unique GW lab to probe such light compact DM. With the design sensitivity of Advanced LIGO, one-year observation by three detectors can optimistically constrain the compact DM density fraction ${f}_{\mathrm{DM}}$ to the level of a few percent.

95 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this article, the two-body Hamiltonian and associated eikonal phase were shown to be in the leading post-Minkowskian order for infinitely many tidal deformations described by operators with arbitrary powers of the curvature tensor.
Abstract: We present the two-body Hamiltonian and associated eikonal phase, to leading post-Minkowskian order, for infinitely many tidal deformations described by operators with arbitrary powers of the curvature tensor. Scattering amplitudes in momentum and position space provide systematic complementary approaches. For the tidal operators quadratic in curvature, which describe the linear response to an external gravitational field, we work out the leading post-Minkowskian contributions using a basis of operators with arbitrary numbers of derivatives which are in one-to-one correspondence with the worldline multipole operators. Explicit examples are used to show that the same techniques apply to both bodies interacting tidally with a spinning particle, for which we find the leading contributions from quadratic in curvature tidal operators with an arbitrary number of derivatives, and to effective field theory extensions of general relativity. We also note that the leading post-Minkowskian order contributions from higher-dimension operators manifest double-copy relations. Finally, we comment on the structure of higher-order corrections.

95 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors show that implementing the mimetic gravity action with higher-order terms that break the Horndeski structure yields a cosmological model that satisfies the constraint on the speed of gravitational waves and mimics both dark energy and dark matter with a nonvanishing speed of sound.

95 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
Peter A. R. Ade1, Nabila Aghanim2, Monique Arnaud3, M. Ashdown4  +334 moreInstitutions (82)
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a cosmological analysis based on full-mission Planck observations of temperature and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation.
Abstract: This paper presents cosmological results based on full-mission Planck observations of temperature and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation. Our results are in very good agreement with the 2013 analysis of the Planck nominal-mission temperature data, but with increased precision. The temperature and polarization power spectra are consistent with the standard spatially-flat 6-parameter ΛCDM cosmology with a power-law spectrum of adiabatic scalar perturbations (denoted “base ΛCDM” in this paper). From the Planck temperature data combined with Planck lensing, for this cosmology we find a Hubble constant, H0 = (67.8 ± 0.9) km s-1Mpc-1, a matter density parameter Ωm = 0.308 ± 0.012, and a tilted scalar spectral index with ns = 0.968 ± 0.006, consistent with the 2013 analysis. Note that in this abstract we quote 68% confidence limits on measured parameters and 95% upper limits on other parameters. We present the first results of polarization measurements with the Low Frequency Instrument at large angular scales. Combined with the Planck temperature and lensing data, these measurements give a reionization optical depth of τ = 0.066 ± 0.016, corresponding to a reionization redshift of . These results are consistent with those from WMAP polarization measurements cleaned for dust emission using 353-GHz polarization maps from the High Frequency Instrument. We find no evidence for any departure from base ΛCDM in the neutrino sector of the theory; for example, combining Planck observations with other astrophysical data we find Neff = 3.15 ± 0.23 for the effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom, consistent with the value Neff = 3.046 of the Standard Model of particle physics. The sum of neutrino masses is constrained to ∑ mν < 0.23 eV. The spatial curvature of our Universe is found to be very close to zero, with | ΩK | < 0.005. Adding a tensor component as a single-parameter extension to base ΛCDM we find an upper limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio of r0.002< 0.11, consistent with the Planck 2013 results and consistent with the B-mode polarization constraints from a joint analysis of BICEP2, Keck Array, and Planck (BKP) data. Adding the BKP B-mode data to our analysis leads to a tighter constraint of r0.002 < 0.09 and disfavours inflationarymodels with a V(φ) ∝ φ2 potential. The addition of Planck polarization data leads to strong constraints on deviations from a purely adiabatic spectrum of fluctuations. We find no evidence for any contribution from isocurvature perturbations or from cosmic defects. Combining Planck data with other astrophysical data, including Type Ia supernovae, the equation of state of dark energy is constrained to w = −1.006 ± 0.045, consistent with the expected value for a cosmological constant. The standard big bang nucleosynthesis predictions for the helium and deuterium abundances for the best-fit Planck base ΛCDM cosmology are in excellent agreement with observations. We also constraints on annihilating dark matter and on possible deviations from the standard recombination history. In neither case do we find no evidence for new physics. The Planck results for base ΛCDM are in good agreement with baryon acoustic oscillation data and with the JLA sample of Type Ia supernovae. However, as in the 2013 analysis, the amplitude of the fluctuation spectrum is found to be higher than inferred from some analyses of rich cluster counts and weak gravitational lensing. We show that these tensions cannot easily be resolved with simple modifications of the base ΛCDM cosmology. Apart from these tensions, the base ΛCDM cosmology provides an excellent description of the Planck CMB observations and many other astrophysical data sets.

10,728 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present results based on full-mission Planck observations of temperature and polarization anisotropies of the CMB, which are consistent with the six-parameter inflationary LCDM cosmology.
Abstract: We present results based on full-mission Planck observations of temperature and polarization anisotropies of the CMB. These data are consistent with the six-parameter inflationary LCDM cosmology. From the Planck temperature and lensing data, for this cosmology we find a Hubble constant, H0= (67.8 +/- 0.9) km/s/Mpc, a matter density parameter Omega_m = 0.308 +/- 0.012 and a scalar spectral index with n_s = 0.968 +/- 0.006. (We quote 68% errors on measured parameters and 95% limits on other parameters.) Combined with Planck temperature and lensing data, Planck LFI polarization measurements lead to a reionization optical depth of tau = 0.066 +/- 0.016. Combining Planck with other astrophysical data we find N_ eff = 3.15 +/- 0.23 for the effective number of relativistic degrees of freedom and the sum of neutrino masses is constrained to < 0.23 eV. Spatial curvature is found to be |Omega_K| < 0.005. For LCDM we find a limit on the tensor-to-scalar ratio of r <0.11 consistent with the B-mode constraints from an analysis of BICEP2, Keck Array, and Planck (BKP) data. Adding the BKP data leads to a tighter constraint of r < 0.09. We find no evidence for isocurvature perturbations or cosmic defects. The equation of state of dark energy is constrained to w = -1.006 +/- 0.045. Standard big bang nucleosynthesis predictions for the Planck LCDM cosmology are in excellent agreement with observations. We investigate annihilating dark matter and deviations from standard recombination, finding no evidence for new physics. The Planck results for base LCDM are in agreement with BAO data and with the JLA SNe sample. However the amplitude of the fluctuations is found to be higher than inferred from rich cluster counts and weak gravitational lensing. Apart from these tensions, the base LCDM cosmology provides an excellent description of the Planck CMB observations and many other astrophysical data sets.

9,745 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
B. P. Abbott1, Richard J. Abbott1, T. D. Abbott2, Matthew Abernathy1  +1008 moreInstitutions (96)
TL;DR: This is the first direct detection of gravitational waves and the first observation of a binary black hole merger, and these observations demonstrate the existence of binary stellar-mass black hole systems.
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 $1.0 \times 10^{-21}$. 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 5.1 {\sigma}. 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 $36^{+5}_{-4} M_\odot$ and $29^{+4}_{-4} M_\odot$, and the final black hole mass is $62^{+4}_{-4} M_\odot$, with $3.0^{+0.5}_{-0.5} M_\odot c^2$ 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.

9,596 citations

Journal Article
TL;DR: The first direct detection of gravitational waves and the first observation of a binary black hole merger were reported in this paper, with a false alarm rate estimated to be less than 1 event per 203,000 years, equivalent to a significance greater than 5.1σ.
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(-180)(+160) Mpc corresponding to a redshift z=0.09(-0.04)(+0.03). In the source frame, the initial black hole masses are 36(-4)(+5)M⊙ and 29(-4)(+4)M⊙, and the final black hole mass is 62(-4)(+4)M⊙, with 3.0(-0.5)(+0.5)M⊙c(2) 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.

4,375 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
B. P. Abbott1, Richard J. Abbott1, T. D. Abbott2, M. R. Abernathy3  +970 moreInstitutions (114)
TL;DR: This second gravitational-wave observation provides improved constraints on stellar populations and on deviations from general relativity.
Abstract: We report the observation of a gravitational-wave signal produced by the coalescence of two stellar-mass black holes. The signal, GW151226, was observed by the twin detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) on December 26, 2015 at 03:38:53 UTC. The signal was initially identified within 70 s by an online matched-filter search targeting binary coalescences. Subsequent off-line analyses recovered GW151226 with a network signal-to-noise ratio of 13 and a significance greater than 5 σ. The signal persisted in the LIGO frequency band for approximately 1 s, increasing in frequency and amplitude over about 55 cycles from 35 to 450 Hz, and reached a peak gravitational strain of 3.4+0.7−0.9×10−22. The inferred source-frame initial black hole masses are 14.2+8.3−3.7M⊙ and 7.5+2.3−2.3M⊙ and the final black hole mass is 20.8+6.1−1.7M⊙. We find that at least one of the component black holes has spin greater than 0.2. This source is located at a luminosity distance of 440+180−190 Mpc corresponding to a redshift 0.09+0.03−0.04. All uncertainties define a 90 % credible interval. This second gravitational-wave observation provides improved constraints on stellar populations and on deviations from general relativity.

3,448 citations