Bounds on Ultralight Dark Matter from NANOGrav

TL;DR

This paper uses NANOGrav gravitational wave data to set new constraints on ultralight dark matter particle masses by analyzing the effects of solitons around supermassive black holes on gravitational wave signals.

Contribution

It provides the first robust constraints on ultralight dark matter particle masses based on gravitational wave observations, specifically ruling out certain mass ranges.

Findings

Ultralight dark matter particles with masses from 1.3×10⁻²¹ eV to 1.4×10⁻²⁰ eV are excluded.

Strong dynamical friction suppresses gravitational wave signals in the nHz range.

Constraints improve understanding of dark matter properties near supermassive black holes.

Abstract

The compelling evidence for the detection of the stochastic gravitational wave background by NANOGrav imposes constraints on the mass of compact cores of ultralight dark matter, also known as "solitons", surrounding supermassive black holes found at the centers of large galaxies. The strong dynamical friction between the rotating black holes and the solitons competes with gravitational emission, resulting in a suppression of the characteristic strain in the nHz frequency range. Our findings robustly rule out ultralight dark matter particles with masses ranging from $1.3\times 10^{-21}$ eV to $1.4\times 10^{-20}$ eV condensing into solitons around supermassive black holes.