SEMINARIO GENERALE INFN

I will present the results from three gravitational-wave searches for coalescing compact binaries with component masses above 1 solar mass during the first and second observing runs of the Advanced gravitational-wave detector network.  During the first observing run (O1), from September 12th, 2015 to January 19th, 2016, gravitational waves from three binary black hole mergers were detected.  The second observing run (O2), which ran from November 30th, 2016 to August 25th, 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 are reported for the first time:  GW170729, GW170809, GW170818 and GW170823.  For all the gravitational-wave events, I will provide estimates of the source properties. 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. Finally, I will give an update on the status of the gravitational-wave detector network in preparation for the third observing run (O3) that will take place in 2019 – 2020.