"We have detected gravitational waves. We did it."

Greetings davidbilby!

.. well now that's throwing the cat in with the pigeon!

I'd much rather be talking about this, and some of the other amazing technological achievements represented by the LIGO facility.

Truly awesome stuff .. a terrific achievement ... and even better is yet to come (eg: LISA).

 

My take on this is that Michael Mozina seemed to have an AGN image (or similar) in his mind when talk of the BH-BH merger came up in this thread. He was incredulous at the idea that it may not have been observable in the visible spectrum, (from Earth). In fact he trashed the whole idea, as being nonsense. Ever since then, he's been back-peddling .. therefore none of what he's come up since, with makes any sense whatsoever.

Anyhow .. that's how I make sense of it.

Yep .. the title excludes the BH-BH merger topic. Ie: "Electromagnetic Counterparts to Gravitational Wave Candidates"

.. And this accusation is based on Michael's now exposed ignorance of the topic on which he 'lets fly' with his (mis)judgement of the LIGO scientists!

 

Some interesting developments about the predicted absence of light emissions from BH-BH mergers reported just today.

The paper cites a coincident null detection of X and gamma radiation conclusion, based on measurements taken by INTEGRAL:
INTEGRAL sets limits on gamma rays from merging black holes
Some notable quotes follow:

 

Me? I think the signal was caused by a very ordinary whistler wave in the magnetosphere/ionosphere region.

Ya, but their sensors and channel data did measure something that originally caused them to *reject* this signal, and with "high confidence" no less. They did measure something that was considered a "veto" at the time of the signal. They conveniently forgot to explain that veto, the specific sensors involved, or the reason for their sudden "change of heart". Without those "facts", nobody on the planet could validate the rest of their claims. Since they failed to provide that highly critical information to the public or to the peer reviewers, it's impossible to know if their subjective *after the fact* re-categorization routine was even valid.

Actually I mostly feel melancholy about stepping into the middle of this particular debate. I don't really have a "dog in the fight" with respect to any specific cosmology beliefs or theories, I like GR and I embrace the concept of gravity waves. I would have been really excited for them and for physics if I had any faith in their claims. Unfortunately I just see far too many problems with this particular paper. In some ways they are far worse problems than with that BICEP2 fiasco paper. The missing veto information is just unbelievable to me.

I'm not really a fan of conspiracy theories frankly. For all it's flaws, the BICEP2 fiasco paper certainly wasn't a "conspiracy". The critical "missing information" in that particular case were the full Planck data sets, and they simply had not been publicly released yet when the BICEP2 team cried "discovery" wolf. Even the BICEP2 folks didn't have full access that critical data or those results yet, so there was certainly no conspiracy involved. The BICEP2 group simply "jumped the gun" and didn't do a full investigation in section 9 as I assumed when I read it.

In the case of that landmark "cry wolf" 2006 "dark matter" paper, they basically just "assumed" that their baryonic mass estimates were correct in 2006. It took another 7 years to demonstrate that they botched the stellar and plasma mass estimates of galaxies by a whopping factor of between 3 and 20 times depending on the type of galaxy and the size of the star in question. That "missing information" wasn't 'fully' publicly available until probably 2012, and the "dark matter experiment" results have only been around for a couple of years. No 'conspiracy' was involved in that cry wolf event either, just sloppy "assumptions" going into the original mass calculations.

In this case however, the critical missing information is mostly related to a specific human decision that was made made a couple of hours after the original veto of this signal, the *specific* sensor and channel information that was associated with that original veto, and the original veto source code. These are things that only *LIGO* had access to in the first place, and that information should have been in the supposedly "peer reviewed" material. Unfortunately that serious omission problem does have the "feel" of conspiracy. Even the peer reviewers were kept in the dark as to the original veto, not to mention any explanation of the decision to re categorize it after the fact.

 

Er, let me be sure I got this right.....

They initially "hoped" that they would be able to see emissions from this supposed "gravity wave" event. They didn't. Instead of falsifying the claim of celestial origin, they simply "assumed" that the event was still celestial in origin. They still assumed that it was related to BH-BH mergers, and *then* (based on those assumptions of truth), they profess to be able to set "limits" on the amount of light that BH-BH mergers can emit, based upon something they *didn't* see? Really? That's your "external support" paper thesis?

 

Nobody ignored it. We simply found out that it wasn't true. They originally *rejected* that specific signal based upon external sensor and auxiliary channel inputs that were in place at the time, and that originally rejected it with "high confidence". They simply left out all those critical pieces of information in the published paper because it undermines everything else they said in the published paper!

 

After reviewing figure 12, and noting my error with respect to the gray and black lines, I'd grant you that the *one* blip transient that they compared does have a "slightly" dissimilar wave pattern. Then again, it's just one blip transient comparison, and it does still have a lot of the same features with respect to frequency shift over a relatively short duration, much like the two potential gravity waves discussed in that paper. Admittedly it's not nearly as nice of a wave form match as I first thought, but it's still in the ballpark in terms of duration and strong frequency shift in such short duration processes. I still don't think it's *that* dissimilar, but I'll definitely grant you that it's not the nice fit that I first thought that it was.

I'd say that what I really need now are the specific sensors, channels and source code that was associated with the original veto of this specific signal. Without that detailed information, it's actually impossible for anyone (external to LIGO) to verify any of their other claims in that paper. The fact that this information was never made public casts a serious doubt as to the various other claims made in that paper. How can anyone verify their claims under these circumstances? There's *way* too much *missing* information, most of which sits in the hands of the LIGO team.

I suppose that I could probably go try to round up whistler wave data from satellites in space and look for an overlap to the signal in question, but that still doesn't resolve the missing sensor/channel data that originally rejected this signal! Where is that information, and why was that vital information *hidden* in the published papers?

I think there's a direct cause/effect relationship between EMP events and the observation of "blip transients". In other words, "blip transients" are not "equipment" related failures as they assume, but rather they are equipment related "detections" of EMP events. Most EMP events are probably too small to be seen by more than a single detector at once, but big enough events might be observed by both detectors. In fact there are two potential candidates discussed in that paper.

Emphasis mine. Ya know.....

It's hard to take you two seriously when you spend so much time and effort at ignoring the difference between attacking the *topic*, vs. attacking the *individual*. When you both blatantly "cheat" by attacking the individual rather than sticking to the topics, it's hard to trust anything else that you say. The terms "unintelligent' and "dishonest" are direct ad homs. Period. If you can *miss* that, what else did you miss?

Er, no. sjastro (and you) have been pirouetting all over the place with respect to sjastro's false claim related to his -2 absolute brightness figure from the conversion of three solar masses in to pure light in less than a second. Since the moment I asked for the math to support that false claim, the pirouetting has been non stop. The goal post shifting and strawmen have been non stop too.

So let me see if I understand your logic. You "hoped" to see something from this event and made every effort to do so. You didn't see anything that suggests it's celestial in nature. Instead of tossing out your claim of celestial origin, you elect instead to *assume* that all your previous assumptions are true, and the reason we didn't see it is because BH-BH mergers are invisible, like the rest of your invisible universe, and therefore you're convinced that "I lied"? Really?

 

Done.

 

Ok, I already admitted my mistake, both here and at Tbolts. When can I expect a formal retraction of this erroneous claim?

http://www.ligo.org/magazine/LIGO-magazine-issue-8.pdf

Surely you'll be as gracious.....

 

http://www.iflscience.com/space/neutron-stars-produce-jets-are-just-powerful-black-holes

Actually, you're pretty much on target in terms of what type of image I had envisioned visually. Even *much* smaller compact objects can and do emit powerful jets at both poles while they "feed". It's almost inconceivable that two massive objects, and all the plasma around them 'feed' on each other, and yet they remain entirely "invisible". That is a little hard to swallow based on what we know of massive objects that are in "feeding" mode.

Did you even provide us with any papers that attempted to calculate the brightness of BH-BH mergers prior to this event?

The only 'judgements' I made about this paper were the ten items that I listed, and they were all valid scientific criticisms of this particular paper. Apparently you wish me to accept your special pleading "naked" black hole merger claim simply because you refuse to impose any sigma limit of confidence on events which cannot be visually verified. Sorry, no can do.

 

http://arxiv.org/abs/1311.6483

By the way, to my knowledge, calculations related to the EM energy release of BH-BH mergers are pretty skimpy. The only paper in recent memory that I can think of was this paper on merging *charged* black holes, in which case up to 1/4 of the mass energy release can be converted to electromagnetic radiation. If we're talking about an emission that resulted in the release of 3 solar masses in gravity waves alone, that would calculate out to about one whole solar mass that could be instantly converted into EM energy.

*Prior* to this specific event under debate, do you have any calculations suggesting that BH-BH mergers would be "invisible"?

Your special pleading must apparently be extended to read "uncharged, naked black hole merger".

 

Hey sjastro;
If Michael had bothered to research, (rather than trash outright), the content behind the announcement in my post#503, then there's a slim chance he might gain the knowledge he attempts to seek. (I'm not too hopeful about that though).

So, fyi:
INTEGRAL UPPER LIMITS ON GAMMA-RAY EMISSION ASSOCIATED WITH THE GRAVITATIONAL WAVE EVENT GW150914, Savchenko et al, March 2016, Section4.2 says:

Preceding this they also state:

... All of which supports exactly what you have been saying all along.

Michael's question about producing 'calculations showing that BH-BH mergers would be invisible' is thus, purely rhetorical. (Which I think you pointed out pages ago, anyway .. (ho hum ..).

 

They conclude:

 

Removed iDQ vetos do not alter the fact that cWB originally detected the signal, and logged it as a detection in the GracedB candidate database. It also does not alter the fact that two completely (offline) independent burst pipeline statistical processes, 'oLIB and BayesWave', both confirmed the detection originally found by cWB based on completely different search techniques, (none of which assumed a BH-BH merger model).

 

Well, after perusing your suggested paper a bit between tech calls, I see that they have listed a number of potential "configurations" to chose from, most of which apparently emit too much light, so they picked the only special pleading option that they could find that "worked" (was invisible enough), namely the "uncharged, naked black hole merger" claim. Yep, that's pretty much just as I figured.

Right, because the concept of electricity in space petrifies modern astronomers, so they immediately rule out electricity as having any significant role in astrophysical processes in space. Check.....

Ah, so this paper is pretty much it eh?

 

I never doubted for a minute that both detectors "detected" the same very real event. It does however demonstrate that this particular published claim is not true. When can I expect to see it retracted?

Within 30 seconds, the iDQ software/detector system in place at the time, vetoed the signal in question. That published sentence is simply false, and the lack of an explanation as to the real order of events is scientifically unacceptable. Even the peer reviewers were never given a correct explanation of the events in question, never given an explanation as to the specific sensors and channels that caused the original rejection, no explanation of how it achieved a "high confidence" rejection, no explanation as to why they changed it, etc. All they were "told" by LIGO is that no IDQ veto took place within an hour of the event, when in fact a veto had occurred within 30 seconds, which is probably as fast as it could occur!

 

FYI, I should mention that I really do appreciate the references and papers you have suggested in this thread Selfsim. You've been a wealth of useful information. I've certainly appreciated that about you.

 

Just a heads up, be carefull where you buy and sell precious metals !!!
We all know you are talking above my head, but
I've been watching this for a number of years, and though I am certainly not an intellectual I knew they had 3 satellites orbiting the earth in a specific distance apart and had found many areas of our planet that had lost some of its gravitational pull.
What do you scientists believe this will lead to? There must be ways of taking advantage of it, though I suppose there are also disadvantages.

Or perhaps my assumption has nothing in common with your discussion?

I'm just a dummy facinated with science.

 

IRON MAN
What's it look like in there?

CAPTAIN AMERICA
It seems to run on some form of
electricity.