Au delà des informations journalistiques, retrouvez l'info à sa source dans votre journal préféré, Physical Review Letters :
"Observation of gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger",
B. P. Abbott et al.* PRL 116, 061102 (2016).
*L'article a 1011 auteurs, dépendant de 133 laboratoires.
Voir aussi le "Point de Vue" de Emanuele Berti dans "Physics" : "The first sounds of merging black holes".
Abstract: On September 14, 2015 at 09:50:45 UTC the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) simultaneously observed a transient gravitational-wave signal. The signal sweeps upwards in frequency from 35 to 250 Hz with a peak gravitational-wave strain of 1.0 10-21. It matches the waveform predicted by general relativity for the inspiral and merger of a pair of black holes and the ringdown of the resulting single black hole. The signal was observed with a matched-filter signal-to-noise ratio of 24 and a false alarm rate estimated to be less than 1 event per 203 000 years, equivalent to a significance greater than 5.1σ. The source lies at a luminosity distance of 410 (+160/-180) Mpc corresponding to a redshift z=0.09 (+0.03/-0.04). In the source frame, the initial black hole masses are 36 (+5/-4) M◎ and 29 (+4/-4) M◎, and the final black hole mass is 62 (+4/-4) M◎ with 3.0 (+0.5/-0.5) M◎c2 radiated in gravitational waves. All uncertainties define 90% credible intervals. These observations demonstrate the existence of binary stellar-mass black hole systems. This is the first direct detection of gravitational waves and the first observation of a binary black hole merger.
Et l'article original d'Albert Einstein : Session de la classe physico-mathématique du 22 Juin 1916 : "Näherungsweise Integration der Feldgleichungen der Gravitation" (Intégration approximative des équations du champ de gravitation), A. Einstein, Sitzungsber. K. Preuss. Akad. Wiss. 1, 688 (1916).
