(February 11, 2016 at 2:54 pm)Alex K Wrote:(February 11, 2016 at 1:51 pm)TubbyTubby Wrote: Presumably the 2 independent detector signals can indicate a direction of the event but how do we work out the distance to the black holes and how do we know it was in fact 2 black holes with specific masses?
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Wife and I have been discussing this exact question over dinner just now They probably did fit the shape of the signal (which has features such as frequency, change in frequency, relative height of peaks) to their general relativity supercomputer simulation to fit the two masses - they hinted at that in their presentation. My guess is that from that comparison you get the radiated power, and knowing the theoretically derived power of the source and the size of the signal as measured on earth, you can derive the distance by calculating how much it has gotten weaker on the way, in this case 1.3 billion lightyears or so. From the time delay between the two detectors you get an approximate region in the sky from which it likely came (roughly the direction of one of the magellanic clouds, but of course much farther away)
I would love to have dinner with you!
This sort of news spurs me on to get back into studying general relativity properly. I need to read more on this, such a small measurement leading specifically to a conclusion of 2 x 30 solar mass black holes blows my mind somewhat.
Interesting times for sure.
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