GW151226: observation of gravitational waves from a 22-solar-mass binary black hole coalescence

Abstract

We report the observation of a gravitational-wave signal produced by the coalescence of two stellar-mass black holes. The signal, GW151226, was observed by the twin detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) on December 26, 2015 at 03:38:53 UTC. The signal was initially identified within 70 s by an online matched-filter search targeting binary coalescences. Subsequent off-line analyses recovered GW151226 with a network signal-to-noise ratio of 13 and a significance greater than 5σ. The signal persisted in the LIGO frequency band for approximately 1 s, increasing in frequency and amplitude over about 55 cycles from 35 to 450 Hz, and reached a peak gravitational strain of 3.4þ0.7 −0.9 × 10−22. The inferred source-frame initial black hole masses are 14.2þ8.3 −3.7M⊙ and 7.5þ2.3 −2.3M⊙, and the final black hole mass is 20.8þ6.1 −1.7M⊙. We find that at least one of the component black holes has spin greater than 0.2. This source is located at a luminosity distance of 440þ180 −190 Mpc corresponding to a redshift of 0.09þ0.03 −0.04 . All uncertainties define a 90% credible interval. This second gravitational-wave observation provides improved constraints on stellar populations and on deviations from general relativity.