Characterization of transient noise in Advanced LIGO relevant to gravitational wave signal GW150914

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the transient noise in Advanced LIGO detectors around GW150914, confirming the signal's astrophysical origin by ruling out environmental and instrumental noise sources.

Contribution

It provides a detailed characterization of transient noise backgrounds relevant to the GW150914 detection, ensuring the signal's significance is robust.

Findings

Transient noise backgrounds were characterized during GW150914

Environmental and instrumental noise sources were ruled out as causes

Detectors operated nominally during the event

Abstract

On September 14, 2015, a gravitational wave signal from a coalescing black hole binary system was observed by the Advanced LIGO detectors. This paper describes the transient noise backgrounds used to determine the significance of the event (designated GW150914) and presents the results of investigations into potential correlated or uncorrelated sources of transient noise in the detectors around the time of the event. The detectors were operating nominally at the time of GW150914. We have ruled out environmental influences and non-Gaussian instrument noise at either LIGO detector as the cause of the observed gravitational wave signal.