Speaker
Description
The first detection of a gravitational-wave signal emitted by a compact binary coalescence was achieved by the network of two LIGO detectors on September 14, 2015. The event, labelled GW150914, is associated with a binary black hole merger. It ushered the era of GW astronomy, offering a new way to probe our Universe.
Since then, during its first three observing runs, the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK)
Collaboration uncovered 89 more gravitational-wave signals, collected in the Gravitational Waves Transient Catalogs (GWTCs).
These signals are all generated by compact binary coalescence sources, mostly BBHs, with a handful compatible with the presence of at least one neutron star in the coalescing binary. Among these events, there are two further outstanding ones.
1) GW170817, the first detected signal compatible with the coalescence of two neutron stars, and the only case of multi-messenger detection involving a GW signals to date.
2) GW190521, the binary black hole merger with the highest total mass
ever detected ($150 \ M_\odot$).
In this talk, I will provide an overview of these and other relevant observational results obtained by the LVK Collaboration during the first three observing runs.
