O3A CATALOG

On October 28, 2020, the LIGO Scientific Collaboration and the Virgo Collaboration announced the results of their searches for gravitational-waves from coalescing compact binaries during the first half of their third observing run (O3a), spanning 1 April 2019 to 1 October 2019. 39 events are reported here; when added to the 11 events in the first Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC-1), this brings the total number of reported LIGO/Virgo gravitational-wave detections to 50. Besides the paper discussing the new catalog, companion papers discuss population properties of the catalog, tests of general relativity, and a search for associated gamma-ray bursts.

Masses of detected LIGO/Virgo compact binaries. This plot shows the masses of all compact binaries detected by LIGO/Virgo, with black holes in blue and neutron stars in orange. Also shown are stellar mass black holes (purple) and neutron stars (yellow) discovered with electromagnetic observations. See also the interactive version of this figure. [Image credit: LIGO/VIrgo/Northwestern Univ./Frank Elavsky]

Publications & Documentation

LIGO/Virgo Binary-Black-Hole Orrery. A visualization of the merging black holes that LIGO and Virgo have observed so far. The video shows numerical-relativity calculations of the black holes’ horizons and the emitted gravitational waves, during the final few orbits of the black holes as they spiral inwards, merge and ring down. Each numerical-relativity calculation is consistent with one of the observations in the LIGO-Virgo catalog. This movie is inspired by the Kepler Orrery.
[Credits: Teresita Ramirez/Geoffrey Lovelace/SXS Collaboration/LIGO-Virgo Collaboration.]

LIGO-Virgo Compact Binary Coalescences Through O3a. This cartoon animation shows the orbits of the compact binaries (black hole and/or neutron star mergers) detected by the LIGO-Virgo Collaboration through the O3a observing run.
[Credits: Zoheyr Doctor/LIGO-Virgo Collaboration.]