LIGO Seminar

Speaker: Javier Roulet

New binary black hole merger detections in the LIGO–Virgo O3a data

The LIGO and Virgo observatories have identified nearly a hundred gravitational wave signals from compact binary mergers. These detections, and their astrophysical interpretation, are only possible using sophisticated data analysis algorithms.

In this talk I will provide an overview of the signal detection problem in the context of gravitational waves. I will then describe a recent independent search for binary black hole mergers in public LIGO–Virgo O3a data, highlighting some features newly added to our search pipeline. We were able to confirm most previous detections and identify 10 new events. Several of the new events have interesting source properties, including examples with large spin (both aligned and anti-aligned with the orbit), and component masses outside standard expectations for black holes from stellar collapse.

Zoom link: https://caltech.zoom.us/j/82072539167