LIGO–Virgo Announces ‘Bumper Crop’ of Gravitational-Wave Detections
aristarchus writes:
According to Physics World:
Physicists working on LIGO-Virgo have confirmed the detection of 39 gravitational-wave signals by the observatories in April-October 2019. This brings the total catalogue of confirmed observations of gravitational waves to 50.
While these 39 signals have been public knowledge for some time - indeed we have covered several of them in Physics World - this announcement from LIGO-Virgo comes as the detections are described in papers that have been submitted for peer review.
According to the LIGO and Virgo collaborations, the upturn in the number of detections was achieved by making significant improvements to the gravitational-wave detectors - which are kilometre-scale interferometers in the US and Italy. Upgrades included boosting the laser power, better mirrors and the use of quantum squeezing technology.
[...] Most of the 39 new signals appear to come from the merger of two black holes, but the haul also includes the second-ever signal received from a pair of merging neutron stars ("LIGO-Virgo claims another neutron-star merger") and also what could be the first-ever signal from the merger of a black hole and a neutron star ("Black-hole-neutron-star merger may have been spotted by LIGO-Virgo").
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