EVANSTON, Ill. — An international team of scientists, including Northwestern University astrophysicists, has detected 128 new gravitational-wave candidates — more than doubling the size of the current catalog.
Within the new dataset, the more unusual signals include the heaviest black hole binary detected to date, a binary where both black holes have exceptionally high spins (rotating at nearly 40% the speed of light) and an unusually lopsided pair of black holes, with one object twice as massive as the other. The catalog also holds two black hole-neutron star binaries.
Scientists detected these ripples in space-time with a global network of gravitational-wave observatories: the U.S.-based National Science Foundation Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (NSF LIGO), the Virgo interferometer in Italy and the Kamioka Gravitational Wave Detector (KAGRA) in Japan.
The latest compilation of gravitational-wave detections will appear in a forthcoming special issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
“Each new gravitational-wave detection adds another data point to our map of the universe’s most extreme objects,” said Northwestern astrophysicist Vicky Kalogera, a senior member of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (LSC). “As our catalog grows, we’re beginning to move from individual discoveries to seeing patterns begin to emerge. Those patterns are helping us understand how black holes and neutron stars form, evolve and merge throughout the cosmos.”
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Main image: Artwork of a pair of merging black holes with differing masses. The gravity of the black holes bends and twists light around them. Credit: Carl Knox, OzGrav, Swinburne University of Technology