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Open AccessJournal ArticleDOI

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

B. P. Abbott, +1134 more
- 16 Oct 2017 - 
- Vol. 119, Iss: 16, pp 161101-161101
TLDR
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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Journal ArticleDOI

Cosmology and dark energy from joint gravitational wave-GRB observations

TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on binary neutron stars with a counterpart detected through a gamma-ray burst (GRB), both at a second-generation network made by advanced LIGO+advanced Virgo+LIGO India+Kagra, and at third-generation (3G) detectors, discussing in particular the cases of a single Einstein Telescope (ET), and of a network of ET plus two Cosmic Explorer (CE).
Journal ArticleDOI

Gravitational-wave astrophysics with effective-spin measurements: Asymmetries and selection biases

TL;DR: In this article, the authors focus on two important complications of using the effective spin to study astrophysical population properties: (i) an astrophysical distribution for the observed effective spin values which is symmetric does not necessarily lead to a symmetric distribution for detected effective spins, leading to a selection bias; and (ii) the posterior distribution of the detected effective spin for individual events is asymmetric and it cannot usually be treated as a Gaussian.
Journal ArticleDOI

The fifth-order post-Newtonian Hamiltonian dynamics of two-body systems from an effective field theory approach: Potential contributions

TL;DR: In this paper, the potential contributions of the motion of binary mass systems in gravity to the fifth post-Newtonian order ab initio using coupling and velocity expansions within an effective field theory approach based on Feynman amplitudes starting with harmonic coordinates and using dimensional regularization were calculated.
Book ChapterDOI

Phases of Dense Matter in Compact Stars

TL;DR: The inner layers of a neutron star consist of a solid nuclear crust, permeated by a neutron ocean in its densest region, possibly on top of a nuclear “pasta” mantle as mentioned in this paper.
References
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Planck 2015 results - XIII. Cosmological parameters

Peter A. R. Ade, +337 more
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.
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Planck 2015 results. XIII. Cosmological parameters

Peter A. R. Ade, +260 more
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.
Journal ArticleDOI

Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger

B. P. Abbott, +1011 more
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.
Journal Article

The Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger

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.
Journal ArticleDOI

GW151226: observation of gravitational waves from a 22-solar-mass binary black hole coalescence

B. P. Abbott, +973 more
TL;DR: This second gravitational-wave observation provides improved constraints on stellar populations and on deviations from general relativity.
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