Binary Black Hole Mergers in the first Advanced LIGO Observing Run

Understand

The first observational run of the Advanced LIGO detectors, from September 12, 2015 to January 19, 2016, saw the first detections of gravitational waves from binary black hole mergers.

• In this paper we present full results from a search for binary black hole merger signals with total masses up to $100 M_\odot$ and detailed implications from our observations of these systems.
• Our search, based on general-relativistic models of gravitational wave signals from binary black hole systems, unambiguously identified two signals, GW150914 and GW151226, with a significance of greater than $5\sigma$ over the observing period.
• It also identified a third possible signal, LVT151012, with substantially lower significance, and with an 87% probability of being of astrophysical origin.