GW150914: the Advanced LIGO detectors in the era of first discoveries

LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Ilya Mandel, Anna Green, Hannah Middleton, Carl-Johan Haster, Edward Thomas, Daniel Töyrä, Serena Vinciguerra, Haoyu Wang, Christopher Berry, Walter Del Pozzo, Will Farr, Andreas Freise, Haixing Miao, Conor Mow-Lowry, Alberto Vecchio, John Veitch, Denis Martynov

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

328 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Following a major upgrade, the two advanced detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) held their first observation run between September 2015 and January 2016. With a strain sensitivity of $10^{-23}/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$ at 100 Hz, the product of observable volume and measurement time exceeded that of all previous runs within the first 16 days of coincident observation. On September 14th, 2015 the Advanced LIGO detectors observed a transient gravitational-wave signal determined to be the coalescence of two black holes [Phys. Rev. Lett. 116, 061102 (2016)], launching the era of gravitational-wave astronomy. The event, GW150914, was observed with a combined signal-to-noise ratio of 24 in coincidence by the two detectors. Here we present the main features of the detectors that enabled this observation. At full sensitivity, the Advanced LIGO detectors are designed to deliver another factor of three improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio for binary black hole systems similar in masses to GW150914.
Original language English 131103 12 Physical Review Letters 116 13 31 Mar 2016 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.131103 Published - 1 Apr 2016

• gr-qc
• astro-ph.HE
• astro-ph.IM

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