GWTC-4.0: Methods for identifying and characterizing gravitational-wave transients

Abac, A. G., Abouelfettouh, I., Acernese, F., Ackley, K., Adhicary, S., Al-Shammari, S., Amarasinghege, O., Bates, D. E., Clarke, J., Dooley, K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1636-0233, Ejlli, A., Fairhurst, S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8480-1961, Goettel, A. S., Griffiths, W. L., Grote, H. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0797-3943, Hannam, M. D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5571-325X, Hayes, R., Higginbotham, S., Javed, W. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0009-1471-7890, Kinnear, M., Kokeyama, K. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2896-1992, Kuntimaddi, N., MacLeod, D. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1395-8694, North, C., Norman, M., Patra, A., Patterson, B. G., Pearce, T., Raymond, V. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0066-0095, Relton, P., Riley, H. K., Sathyaprakash, B. S. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3845-7586, Schutz, B. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9487-6983, Shaw, M. R., Skliris, V., Southgate, A., Sutton, P. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1614-3922, Tsang, T. T. L., Weaver, B. and Willets, K. 2026. GWTC-4.0: Methods for identifying and characterizing gravitational-wave transients. The Astrophysical Journal Letters 1004 (2) , L21. 10.3847/2041-8213/ae447b

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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.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > Physics and Astronomy
Additional Information:	Full author list can be seen at https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/ae447b. License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Type: cc-by
Publisher:	American Astronomical Society
ISSN:	2041-8205
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	25 June 2026
Date of Acceptance:	6 February 2026
Last Modified:	05 Aug 2026 01:51
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/187739

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