How LIGO and 'Physical Review Letters' worked together to publish the paper of a lifetime

"In order to decide where to publish one of the most significant discoveries in the history of physics, the scientists put it to a vote. Last September, before ripples in space-time set off detectors at the two Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory sites in Louisiana and Washington State, members of the LIGO Scientific Collaboration were asked to decide how they would announce the paradigm-shattering discovery of gravitational waves, first predicted by Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity in 1916. The group’s council members -- representatives from the 83 institutions participating in the effort -- began casting their ballots online on Sept. 9, 2015. Peter K. Fritschel, chief detector scientist at LIGO, said a 'clear favorite' soon emerged: Physical Review Letters, the flagship journal of the American Physical Society. The vote quickly came in handy. Five days later, the first observable gravitational waves, caused by the merger of two black holes 1.3 billion years ago, reached Earth. The poll is one example of the painstakingly detailed procedures in place for a scientific undertaking more than four decades and $1.1 billion in the making. Each step of the process, from discovery to dissemination, is meticulously planned out. There’s a committee in place to make a detection claim, a second to analyze that claim, a third to write the paper -- and numerous others. There is also a designated spokesperson, who contacted Physical Review Letters in December to discuss how long it would take to review and publish the groundbreaking paper. There, LIGO discovered an organization with thorough procedures of its own ... Physical Review Letters is a hybrid open-access journal. Authors can make the decision to publish open access themselves. If they, like the LIGO researchers, want to make their work available under a Creative Commons license, they can pay a $2,900 article processing charge. The journal also makes every paper it publishes a viewpoint on available to read for free, which totals about 75 additional papers a year, Garisto said ..."