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Free keywords:
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, gr-qc, Astrophysics, Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics, astro-ph.IM
Abstract:
Recent detections of merging black holes allow observational tests of the
nature of these objects. In some proposed models, non-trivial structure at or
near the black hole horizon could lead to echo signals in gravitational wave
data. Recently, Abedi, Dykaar and Afshordi claimed tentative evidence for
repeating damped echo signals following the gravitational-wave signals of the
binary black hole merger events recorded in the first observational period of
the Advanced LIGO interferometers. We reanalyse the same data, addressing some
of the shortcomings of their method using more background data and a modified
procedure. We find a reduced statistical significance for the claims of
evidence for echoes, and calculate increased p-values for the null hypothesis
of signal-free noise. We conclude that their analysis does not provide
significant observational evidence for the existence of Planck-scale structure
at black hole horizons.