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

TL;DR

This paper uses gravitational wave data from spinning binary black holes to place new constraints on the existence of ultralight bosons, excluding certain mass ranges for scalars and vectors.

Contribution

It provides the first constraints on ultralight bosons from gravitational wave spin measurements, extending exclusion ranges beyond previous electromagnetic and gravitational wave methods.

Findings

Excluded scalar boson masses in [0.55, 11]×10^{-13} eV

Excluded vector boson masses in [0.11, 18]×10^{-13} eV

Mapped constraints to axion and dark photon models

Abstract

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.