Search for gravitational waves from binary black hole inspiral, merger, and ringdown

LIGO Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

We present the first modeled search for gravitational waves using the complete binary black-hole gravitational waveform from inspiral through the merger and ringdown for binaries with negligible component spin. We searched approximately 2 years of LIGO data, taken between November 2005 and September 2007, for systems with component masses of 1-99M(circle dot) and total masses of 25-100M(circle dot). We did not detect any plausible gravitational-wave signals but we do place upper limits on the merger rate of binary black holes as a function of the component masses in this range. We constrain the rate of mergers for 19M(circle dot) <= m(1), m(2) <= 28M(circle dot) binary black-hole systems with negligible spin to be no more than 2.0 Mpc(-3) Myr(-1) at 90% confidence.
Original languageEnglish
Article number122005
Number of pages20
JournalPhysical Review D
Volume83
Issue number12
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 6 Jun 2011
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • MODELING KICKS
  • MASS
  • COALESCENCE
  • SPIN
  • FILTERS
  • CHOICE
  • RATES

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