Ultralight boson constraints from gravitational wave observations of spinning binary black holes

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Hauptverfasser: Aswathi, P. S., East, William E., Siemonsen, Nils, Sun, Ling, Jones, Dana
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2025
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author Aswathi, P. S.
East, William E.
Siemonsen, Nils
Sun, Ling
Jones, Dana
author_facet Aswathi, P. S.
East, William E.
Siemonsen, Nils
Sun, Ling
Jones, Dana
contents In the presence of an ultralight scalar or vector boson, a spinning black hole will be spun down through the superradiant instability. We use spin measurements from gravitational wave observations of binary black holes, in particular the heavy binary black hole merger event GW231123, along with the lower-mass GW190517 event, to constrain the existence of ultralight bosons. We disfavor scalars with masses in the range of $[0.55, 11]\times 10^{-13}$ eV and vectors in the range of $[0.11, 18]\times 10^{-13}$ eV, making only a conservative assumption that the black hole lifetimes are greater than $10^5$ years. The lower ends of these ranges, where the exclusion confidence is the highest, were not previously excluded by spin measurements from electromagnetic or gravitational wave observations. We map these constraints to axion and dark photon models with interactions.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_20979
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Ultralight boson constraints from gravitational wave observations of spinning binary black holes
Aswathi, P. S.
East, William E.
Siemonsen, Nils
Sun, Ling
Jones, Dana
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
In the presence of an ultralight scalar or vector boson, a spinning black hole will be spun down through the superradiant instability. We use spin measurements from gravitational wave observations of binary black holes, in particular the heavy binary black hole merger event GW231123, along with the lower-mass GW190517 event, to constrain the existence of ultralight bosons. We disfavor scalars with masses in the range of $[0.55, 11]\times 10^{-13}$ eV and vectors in the range of $[0.11, 18]\times 10^{-13}$ eV, making only a conservative assumption that the black hole lifetimes are greater than $10^5$ years. The lower ends of these ranges, where the exclusion confidence is the highest, were not previously excluded by spin measurements from electromagnetic or gravitational wave observations. We map these constraints to axion and dark photon models with interactions.
title Ultralight boson constraints from gravitational wave observations of spinning binary black holes
topic General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.20979