GWTC-1: A Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog of Compact Binary Mergers Observed by LIGO and Virgo during the First and Second Observing Runs

We present the results from three gravitational-wave searches for coalescing compact binaries with component masses above 1 M<SUB>☉</SUB> during the first and second observing runs of the advanced gravitational-wave detector network. During the first observing run (O 1 ), from September 12, 2015 to January 19, 2016, gravitational waves from three binary black hole mergers were detected. The second observing run (O 2 ), which ran from November 30, 2016 to August 25, 2017, saw the first detection of gravitational waves from a binary neutron star inspiral, in addition to the observation of gravitational waves from a total of seven binary black hole mergers, four of which we report here for the first time: GW170729, GW170809, GW170818, and GW170823. For all significant gravitational-wave events, we provide estimates of the source properties. The detected binary black holes have total masses between 18.6<SUB>-0.7</SUB><SUP>+3.2</SUP> M<SUB>☉</SUB> and 84.4<SUB>-11.1</SUB><SUP>+15.8</SUP> M<SUB>☉</SUB> and range in distance between 320<SUB>-110</SUB><SUP>+120</SUP> and 2840<SUB>-1360</SUB><SUP>+1400</SUP> Mpc . No neutron star-black hole mergers were detected. In addition to highly significant gravitational-wave events, we also provide a list of marginal event candidates with an estimated false-alarm rate less than 1 per 30 days. From these results over the first two observing runs, which include approximately one gravitational-wave detection per 15 days of data searched, we infer merger rates at the 90% confidence intervals of 110 -3840 Gpc<SUP>-3</SUP> y<SUP>-1</SUP> for binary neutron stars and 9.7 -101 Gpc<SUP>-3</SUP> y<SUP>-1</SUP> for binary black holes assuming fixed population distributions and determine a neutron star-black hole merger rate 90% upper limit of 610 Gpc<SUP>-3</SUP> y<SUP>-1</SUP> .