# Abbott:2016 — GW150914 discovery paper

**Citation.** B. P. Abbott *et al.* (LIGO Scientific Collaboration and
Virgo Collaboration), "Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary
Black Hole Merger", *Physical Review Letters* **116**, 061102 (2016).
[doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102](https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.116.061102)
· [arXiv:1602.03837](https://arxiv.org/abs/1602.03837)

**Access.** Open access (PRL). Calibrated strain data are public through
the Gravitational Wave Open Science Center,
<https://gwosc.org/events/GW150914/>.

## What this reference supports in the treatise

Used in [`06-exp-gravitational-waves.tex`](../../latex/parts/05-general-relativity-cosmology/06-exp-gravitational-waves.tex)
for the direct-detection experiment box, and in Appendix A.1
(`app:quadrupole`) as the target the quadrupole derivation is checked
against.

Every number the chapter quotes from this paper is transcribed in
[`../data/Abbott_2016.csv`](../data/Abbott_2016.csv) with its published
uncertainty, so the chapter's claims can be diffed against the source
without reopening the PDF.

## Provenance and caveats

- The stored CSV is a **transcription of published values**, not a
  reanalysis. Uncertainties are the 90% credible intervals as quoted.
- Masses are source-frame. The paper also quotes detector-frame masses,
  larger by a factor $(1+z)$ with $z \approx 0.09$; do not mix the two.
- The peak strain $1.0\times10^{-21}$ is the characteristic amplitude at
  the detectors, not a source-frame quantity.
- Later catalogue reanalyses (GWTC-1 and successors) revise these
  parameters slightly. The treatise cites the discovery paper
  deliberately, as the experimental record of the first detection; if a
  chapter ever needs the current best-fit values instead, that is a
  different citation and should be added as one.

## Why no PDF is stored here

PRL open access permits redistribution, but `docs/library/papers/` is
gitignored by default to keep the repository free of publisher PDFs
(see [`../README.md`](../README.md)). The DOI and arXiv links above are
authoritative and stable; the manifest marks this entry `"access":
"open"`, which is what makes it GREEN in the validation dashboard.