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General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, gr-qc
Abstract:
We present the first modeled search for gravitational waves using the
complete binary black hole gravitational waveform from inspiral through the
merger and ringdown for binaries with negligible component spin. We searched
approximately 2 years of LIGO data taken between November 2005 and September
2007 for systems with component masses of 1-99 solar masses and total masses of
25-100 solar masses. We did not detect any plausible gravitational-wave signals
but we do place upper limits on the merger rate of binary black holes as a
function of the component masses in this range. We constrain the rate of
mergers for binary black hole systems with component masses between 19 and 28
solar masses and negligible spin to be no more than 2.0 per Mpc^3 per Myr at
90% confidence.