Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-20-2026
Journal / Book Title
Astrophysical Journal Letters
Abstract
The Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC) is a collection of candidate gravitational-wave transient signals identified and characterized by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration. Producing the contents of the GWTC from detector data requires complex analysis methods. These comprise techniques to model the signal; identify the transients in the data; evaluate the quality of the data and mitigate possible instrumental issues; infer the parameters of each transient; compare the data with the waveform models for compact binary coalescences; and handle the large amount of results associated with all of these different analyses. In this paper, we describe the methods employed to produce the catalog's fourth release, GWTC-4.0, focusing on the analysis of the first part of the fourth observing run of Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA.
DOI
10.3847/2041-8213/ae447b
MSU Digital Commons Citation
LIGO Scientific Collaboration; Virgo Collaboration; KAGRA Collaboration; Favata, Marc; Ghosh, Shoan; and Martin, Rodica, "GWTC-4.0: Methods for Identifying and Characterizing Gravitational-wave Transients" (2026). Department of Physics and Astronomy Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works. 168.
https://digitalcommons.montclair.edu/physics-astron-facpubs/168
Rights
Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
Published Citation
Abac, A. G., et al. “GWTC-4.0: Methods for Identifying and Characterizing Gravitational-Wave Transients.” The Astrophysical Journal Letters, vol. 1004, no. 2, June 2026, p. L21. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ae447b.
Comments
Only Montclair and organizational authors are listed. Please see PDF for additional authors by name.