7 July 2017 — The second Advanced LIGO run began on November 30, 2016 and is scheduled to end on August 25, 2017. The run was suspended on May 8 for some in-vacuum commissioning activities at both sites; it resumed on May 26 at LIGO Livingston Observatory and on June 8 at LIGO Hanford Observatory. As of June 23, approximately 81 days of Hanford-Livingston coincident science data have been collected. The average reach of the LIGO network for binary merger events has been around 70 Mpc for 1.4+1.4 Msun, 300 Mpc for 10+10 Msun and 700 Mpc for 30+30 Msun mergers, with relative variations in time of the order of 10%.
As of June 23, 8 triggers, identified by online analysis using a loose false-alarm-rate threshold of one per month, have been identified and shared with astronomers who have signed memoranda of understanding with LIGO and Virgo for electromagnetic followup. One of these triggers has been confirmed by offline analysis, given the name GW170104, and published on June 1. A thorough investigation of the data and offline analysis are in progress; results will be shared when available.
Advanced Virgo has joined the network for few days in June in engineering mode, performing full tests in preparation for the triple-observing run planned for later this summer.