Glossary
- BBH
- Binary black hole system, a binary system composed of two black holes.
- BNS
- Binary neutron star, a binary system composed of two neutron stars.
- MassGap
- Compact binary systems with at least one compact object whose mass is
in the hypothetical “mass gap” between neutron stars and black holes,
defined here as 3-5 solar masses.
- CBC
- Compact binary coalescence.
- FITS
- Flexible Image Transport System, a format for astronomical tables,
images, and multidimensional data sets.
- LHO
- LIGO Hanford Observatory (see LHO observatory home page), site of a 4 km gravitational-wave
detector in Hanford, Washington, USA.
- LLO
- LIGO Livingston Observatory (see LLO observatory home page), site of a 4 km gravitational-wave
detector in Livingston, Louisiana, USA.
- GCN
- The Gamma-ray Coordinates Network (https://gcn.gsfc.nasa.gov), a portal
for discoveries and observations of astronomical transients.
Historically, GCN has served high-energy satellites but now also other
electromagnetic wavelengths and also gravitational-wave, cosmic ray,
and neutrino facilities.
- GCN Circular
- A human-readable astronomical bulletin distributed through GCN.
- GCN Notice
- A machine-readable alert distributed through GCN.
- GraceDb
- Gravitational Wave Candidate Event Database (https://gracedb.ligo.org),
the official public marshal portal for LIGO/Virgo candidates.
- HEALPix
- Hierarchical Equal Area isoLatitude Pixelation, a scheme for indexing
positions on the unit sphere.
- NSBH
- Neutron star black hole, a binary system composed of one neutron star
and one black hole.
- Virgo
- Virgo Observatory (see Virgo observatory home page), site of a 3 km gravitational-wave detector
in Cascina, Italy.
- VOEvent
- An XML format for describing astronomical transients. For the
specification, see the official VOEvent IVOA Recommendation.
- VTP
- VOEvent Transport Protocol, a simple TCP-based protocol for sending and
receiving VOEvents, used by GCN. For the specification, see the
official VTP IVOA recommendation.
