The basic physics of the binary black hole merger GW150914
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Abbott_et_al-2017-Annalen_der_Physik.pdf
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Author(s)
Aggarwal, Nancy
Barsotti, Lisa
Biscans, Sebastien
Brown, N. M.
Buikema, Aaron
Donovan, Frederick J
Essick, Reed Clasey
Evans, M.
Fritschel, Peter K
Gras, Slawomir
Date Issued
January 2017
Journal
Annalen der Physik
Publisher
Wiley-Blackwell
Citation
Abbott, B. P. et al. "The basic physics of the binary black hole merger GW150914." Annalen der Physik 529, 1-2 (January 2017): 1600209 © 2016 The Authors
Version
Final published version
Abstract
The first direct gravitational-wave detection was made by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory on September 14, 2015. The GW150914 signal was strong enough to be apparent, without using any waveform model, in the filtered detector strain data. Here, features of the signal visible in the data are analyzed using concepts from Newtonian physics and general relativity, accessible to anyone with a general physics background. The simple analysis presented here is consistent with the fully general-relativistic analyses published elsewhere, in showing that the signal was produced by the inspiral and subsequent merger of two black holes. The black holes were each of approximately 35 M[subscript ʘ], still orbited each other as close as ∼350 km apart and subsequently merged to form a single black hole. Similar reasoning, directly from the data, is used to roughly estimate how far these black holes were from the Earth, and the energy that they radiated in gravitational waves. Keywords: GW150914; gravitational waves; black holes
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1002/ANDP.201600209
