The population of merging compact binaries inferred using gravitational waves through GWTC-3

v2: minor edits, most to Table 1 and caption; v3: rerun with public data; Data release: https://zenodo.org/record/5655785; v4: update Fig 14We report on the population properties of 76 compact binary mergers detected with gravitational waves below a false alarm rate of 1 per year through GWTC-3. The catalog contains three classes of binary mergers: BBH, BNS, and NSBH mergers. We infer the BNS merger rate to be between 10 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ and 1700 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ and the NSBH merger rate to be between 7.8 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ and 140 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ , assuming a constant rate density versus comoving volume and taking the union of 90% credible intervals for methods used in this work. Accounting for the BBH merger rate to evolve with redshift, we find the BBH merger rate to be between 17.9 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ and 44 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ at a fiducial redshift (z=0.2). We obtain a broad neutron star mass distribution extending from $1.2^{+0.1}_{-0.2} M_\odot$ to $2.0^{+0.3}_{-0.3} M_\odot$. We can confidently identify a rapid decrease in merger rate versus component mass between neutron star-like masses and black-hole-like masses, but there is no evidence that the merger rate increases again before 10 $M_\odot$. We also find the BBH mass distribution has localized over- and under-densities relative to a power law distribution. While we continue to find the mass distribution of a binary's more massive component strongly decreases as a function of primary mass, we observe no evidence of a strongly suppressed merger rate above $\sim 60 M_\odot$. The rate of BBH mergers is observed to increase with redshift at a rate proportional to $(1+z)^{\kappa}$ with $\kappa = 2.9^{+1.7}_{-1.8}$ for $z\lesssim 1$. Observed black hole spins are small, with half of spin magnitudes below $\chi_i \simeq 0.25$. We observe evidence of negative aligned spins in the population, and an increase in spin magnitude for systems with more unequal mass ratio

The population of merging compact binaries inferred using gravitational waves through GWTC-3

v2: minor edits, most to Table 1 and caption; v3: rerun with public data; Data release: https://zenodo.org/record/5655785; v4: update Fig 14We report on the population properties of 76 compact binary mergers detected with gravitational waves below a false alarm rate of 1 per year through GWTC-3. The catalog contains three classes of binary mergers: BBH, BNS, and NSBH mergers. We infer the BNS merger rate to be between 10 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ and 1700 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ and the NSBH merger rate to be between 7.8 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ and 140 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ , assuming a constant rate density versus comoving volume and taking the union of 90% credible intervals for methods used in this work. Accounting for the BBH merger rate to evolve with redshift, we find the BBH merger rate to be between 17.9 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ and 44 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ at a fiducial redshift (z=0.2). We obtain a broad neutron star mass distribution extending from $1.2^{+0.1}_{-0.2} M_\odot$ to $2.0^{+0.3}_{-0.3} M_\odot$. We can confidently identify a rapid decrease in merger rate versus component mass between neutron star-like masses and black-hole-like masses, but there is no evidence that the merger rate increases again before 10 $M_\odot$. We also find the BBH mass distribution has localized over- and under-densities relative to a power law distribution. While we continue to find the mass distribution of a binary's more massive component strongly decreases as a function of primary mass, we observe no evidence of a strongly suppressed merger rate above $\sim 60 M_\odot$. The rate of BBH mergers is observed to increase with redshift at a rate proportional to $(1+z)^{\kappa}$ with $\kappa = 2.9^{+1.7}_{-1.8}$ for $z\lesssim 1$. Observed black hole spins are small, with half of spin magnitudes below $\chi_i \simeq 0.25$. We observe evidence of negative aligned spins in the population, and an increase in spin magnitude for systems with more unequal mass ratio

The population of merging compact binaries inferred using gravitational waves through GWTC-3

v2: minor edits, most to Table 1 and caption; v3: rerun with public data; Data release: https://zenodo.org/record/5655785; v4: update Fig 14We report on the population properties of 76 compact binary mergers detected with gravitational waves below a false alarm rate of 1 per year through GWTC-3. The catalog contains three classes of binary mergers: BBH, BNS, and NSBH mergers. We infer the BNS merger rate to be between 10 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ and 1700 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ and the NSBH merger rate to be between 7.8 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ and 140 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ , assuming a constant rate density versus comoving volume and taking the union of 90% credible intervals for methods used in this work. Accounting for the BBH merger rate to evolve with redshift, we find the BBH merger rate to be between 17.9 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ and 44 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ at a fiducial redshift (z=0.2). We obtain a broad neutron star mass distribution extending from $1.2^{+0.1}_{-0.2} M_\odot$ to $2.0^{+0.3}_{-0.3} M_\odot$. We can confidently identify a rapid decrease in merger rate versus component mass between neutron star-like masses and black-hole-like masses, but there is no evidence that the merger rate increases again before 10 $M_\odot$. We also find the BBH mass distribution has localized over- and under-densities relative to a power law distribution. While we continue to find the mass distribution of a binary's more massive component strongly decreases as a function of primary mass, we observe no evidence of a strongly suppressed merger rate above $\sim 60 M_\odot$. The rate of BBH mergers is observed to increase with redshift at a rate proportional to $(1+z)^{\kappa}$ with $\kappa = 2.9^{+1.7}_{-1.8}$ for $z\lesssim 1$. Observed black hole spins are small, with half of spin magnitudes below $\chi_i \simeq 0.25$. We observe evidence of negative aligned spins in the population, and an increase in spin magnitude for systems with more unequal mass ratio

The population of merging compact binaries inferred using gravitational waves through GWTC-3

v2: minor edits, most to Table 1 and caption; v3: rerun with public data; Data release: https://zenodo.org/record/5655785; v4: update Fig 14We report on the population properties of 76 compact binary mergers detected with gravitational waves below a false alarm rate of 1 per year through GWTC-3. The catalog contains three classes of binary mergers: BBH, BNS, and NSBH mergers. We infer the BNS merger rate to be between 10 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ and 1700 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ and the NSBH merger rate to be between 7.8 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ and 140 $\rm{Gpc^{-3} yr^{-1}}$ , assuming a constant rate density versus comoving volume and taking the union of 90% credible intervals for methods used in this work. Accounting for the BBH merger rate to evolve with redshift, we find the BBH merger rate to be between 17.9 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ and 44 $\rm{Gpc^{-3}\, yr^{-1}}$ at a fiducial redshift (z=0.2). We obtain a broad neutron star mass distribution extending from $1.2^{+0.1}_{-0.2} M_\odot$ to $2.0^{+0.3}_{-0.3} M_\odot$. We can confidently identify a rapid decrease in merger rate versus component mass between neutron star-like masses and black-hole-like masses, but there is no evidence that the merger rate increases again before 10 $M_\odot$. We also find the BBH mass distribution has localized over- and under-densities relative to a power law distribution. While we continue to find the mass distribution of a binary's more massive component strongly decreases as a function of primary mass, we observe no evidence of a strongly suppressed merger rate above $\sim 60 M_\odot$. The rate of BBH mergers is observed to increase with redshift at a rate proportional to $(1+z)^{\kappa}$ with $\kappa = 2.9^{+1.7}_{-1.8}$ for $z\lesssim 1$. Observed black hole spins are small, with half of spin magnitudes below $\chi_i \simeq 0.25$. We observe evidence of negative aligned spins in the population, and an increase in spin magnitude for systems with more unequal mass ratio

GWTC-3: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the Second Part of the Third Observing Run

The third Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC-3) describes signals detected with Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo up to the end of their third observing run. Updating the previous GWTC-2.1, we present candidate gravitational waves from compact binary coalescences during the second half of the third observing run (O3b) between 1 November 2019, 15∶00 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) and 27 March 2020, 17∶00 UTC. There are 35 compact binary coalescence candidates identified by at least one of our search algorithms with a probability of astrophysical origin p_{astro}>0.5. Of these, 18 were previously reported as low-latency public alerts, and 17 are reported here for the first time. Based upon estimates for the component masses, our O3b candidates with p_{astro}>0.5 are consistent with gravitational-wave signals from binary black holes or neutron-star–black-hole binaries, and we identify none from binary neutron stars. However, from the gravitational-wave data alone, we are not able to measure matter effects that distinguish whether the binary components are neutron stars or black holes. The range of inferred component masses is similar to that found with previous catalogs, but the O3b candidates include the first confident observations of neutron-star–black-hole binaries. Including the 35 candidates from O3b in addition to those from GWTC-2.1, GWTC-3 contains 90 candidates found by our analysis with p_{astro}>0.5 across the first three observing runs. These observations of compact binary coalescences present an unprecedented view of the properties of black holes and neutron stars