Cosmology Views

LIGO Inspiral Events Confirmation

The LIGO system was designed to detect binary inspiral events.

All the claims should have some form of confirmation. Currently only one detection has a claimed confirmation which includes a controversy.
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LIGO '[looks] for inspiral signals, which can occur when two compact objects, such as neutron stars or black holes, form binary systems. Over time, the objects spiral in toward one another, producing gravitational radiation.

LIGO gravitational wave detectors saw a grand total of 11 events that have now been classified as robust gravitational wave detections.

my comment:

As of December 16, 2019 all 50 LIGO events were within 8 days of an earth tide event (a crust uplift wave by the Sun or Moon).29 detections were within only 2 days of an earth tide.

Only 11 were robust events (all before 2018) have an identified binary for a gravitational wave detection (GW event). The other 36 were assigned a probability of being a possible binary merger.

Of those 11 GW events, 9 were within 2 days of an earth tide event.
All 11 were within 6 days of an earth tide event.

Data are from Wikipedia.

The X day is the number of days from an earth tide event, like a Full Moon or New Moon or PeriGee.


GW150914 _1 day FM_ BH-BH
GW151012 _ 0 day NM_ BH-BH
GW151226 _1 day FM_ BH-BH
GW170104 _0 day PH_ BH-BH
GW170608 _1 day FM_ BH-BH
GW170729 _6 day NM_ BH-BH
GW170809 _2 day FM_ BH-BH
GW170814 _4 day PG_ BH-BH
GW170817 _1 day PG_ NS-NS
GW170818 _0 day PG_ BH-BH
GW170823 _2 day NM_ BH-BH

Details about these celestial events are in separate topic.

The other LIGO events are just candidates with probabilities.

S190408an  _ 2 day NM _ likely BH-BH
S190421ar _ 2 day MJ_ 96% chance of BH-BH
S190425z  _ 2 day MJ_ likely NS-NS
S190426c_ 3 day MJ _ 49% chance of NS-NS
S190503bf _ 1 day NM_ 96% BH-BH, <1% BH-NS
S190510g   _ 3 day PG_ 58% chance noise, no proposed merger
S190512at _ 1 day PG_ likely BH-BH, 1% noise
S190513bm _ 0 day NM_ likely BH-BH 
S190517h _ 1 day FM_  likely BH-BH, <1% BH-NS
S190519bj _ 1 day FM_ likely BH-BH
S190521g _ 3 day FM_ likely BH-BH
S190521r _ 2 day FM_ likely BH-BH
S190602aq _ 1 day NM_ likely BH-BH
S190630ag _ 2 day NM_ likely BH-BH
S190701ah _ 1 day NM_ likely BH-BH
S190706ai _ 4 day NM_ likely BH-BH, <1% Noise
S190707q _ 5 day NM_ likely BH-BH, <1% MassGap
S190720a _ 2 day FM_ likely BH-BH, 1% chance noise
S190727h  _ 4 day NM_ likely BH-BH, <3% MassGap
S190728q _ 3 day NM_ 34% BH-BH,14% BH-NS, 52% MassGap
S190814bv _ 1 day FM_ likely BH-NS, <1% MassGap
S190828j _ 2 day NM_ -100% BH-BH, <1% noise
S190828l _ 2 day NM_ likely BH-BH, <1% noise
S190901ap _ 2 day NM_ 86% NS-NS, 14% noise
S190910d _ 3 day FM_ likely BH-NS, <1% noise
S190910h _ 3 day FM_ 61% NS-NS, 39% noise
S190915ak _ 2 day FM_ likely BH-BH, <1% noise
S190923y _ 5 day NM_ 67% NS-BH, 32% noise
S190924h _ 4 day NM_ -100% MassGap, <1% noise
S190930s _ 2 day NM_ 95% MassGap, 5% noise
S190930t _ 2 day NM_ 74% NS-NS, 25% noise
S191105e _ 7 day FM_ 95% BH-BH, 5% noise
S191109d  _ 3 day FM_ likely BH-BH, <1% noise
S191129u _ 3 day NM _ -100% BH-BH
S191204t_ 8 day FM_ -100% BH-BH
S191205ah_ 7 day FM_ 93% BH-BH, 7% noise
S191213g_ 1 day FM_ 77% BH-BH, 23% noise
S191215w_ 3 day FM_ likely BH-BH
S191216ap_ 2 day PG_ -100% MassGap

likely is > 90% chance

Only one robust NS-NS Merger

GW170817 was a claimed NS-NS merger.
Note: there is a link below to a story about the controversy for this GW event.

From wikipedia:
'
These [NS-NS] events are believed to create short gamma-ray bursts.
'


The historic GW170817 detection along with a GRB detection was claimed to validate LIGO.



In June 2019 a news story from Germany revealed the Fermi detection was first and then the LIGO report matched that Fermi observation, with LIGO only a few hours later.
This is the opposite sequence reported, including when LIGO received the Nobel Prize in 2017.

The LIGO system is passive, just reporting ripples in the crust. A gravitational wave is undefined in terms of physics so no instrument can be built to detect them.

When LIGO claims to have detected an event it should provide confirmation of that event. None have confirmation.

If the software had a defect where an 'unexpected' signal was a match for the BH-BH template we would never know of that error because a claim for a BH-BH merger cannot be confirmed to determine whether the claim was correct or an error.
The certainty for all claimed GW events is not justified.

After finding a 2017 news story from Germany the above analysis might be irrelevant. A number of scientists have doubted the LIGO claims for that historic merger detection that validated LIGO.

posted about that controversial news story on September 11, 2019.


Here is the Thunderbolts Project view on GW.

Last updated (12/04/2019)