GWTC-1: A Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the First and Second Observing Runs

We present the results from three gravitational-wave searches for coalescing compact binaries with component masses above 1  𝑀⊙ during the first and second observing runs of the advanced gravitational-wave detector network. During the first observing run (𝑂⁢1), from September 12, 2015 to January 19, 2016, gravitational waves from three binary black hole mergers were detected. The second observing run (𝑂⁢2), which ran from November 30, 2016 to August 25, 2017, saw the first detection of gravitational waves from a binary neutron star inspiral, in addition to the observation of gravitational waves from a total of seven binary black hole mergers, four of which we report here for the first time: GW170729, GW170809, GW170818, and GW170823. For all significant gravitational-wave events, we provide estimates of the source properties. The detected binary black holes have total masses between 18.6+3.2 −0.7  𝑀⊙ and 84.4+15.8 −11.1  𝑀⊙ and range in distance between 320+120 −110 and 2840+1400 −1360  Mpc. No neutron star–black hole mergers were detected. In addition to highly significant gravitational-wave events, we also provide a list of marginal event candidates with an estimated false-alarm rate less than 1 per 30 days. From these results over the first two observing runs, which include approximately one gravitational-wave detection per 15 days of data searched, we infer merger rates at the 90% confidence intervals of 110−3840  Gpc−3 y−1 for binary neutron stars and 9.7−101  Gpc−3 y−1 for binary black holes assuming fixed population distributions and determine a neutron star–black hole merger rate 90% upper limit of 610  Gpc−3 y−1.