GWTC-5.0: An Introduction to Version 5.0 of the Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog

Understand

The Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC) is a collection of short-duration (transient) gravitational-wave signals identified by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration in gravitational-wave data produced by the eponymous detectors.

• The catalog provides information about the identified candidates, such as the arrival time and amplitude of the signal and properties of the signal's source as inferred from the observational data.
• GWTC is the release of this dataset and version 5.0 extends the catalog to include observations made during the second part of the fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA observing run up until 2025 January 28.
• This paper marks an introduction to a collection of articles related to this version of the catalog, GWTC-5.0.