Ultralight boson constraints from gravitational wave observations of spinning binary black holes
arXiv:2507.20979 · doi:10.1103/n5hr-zljn
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 eV and vectors in the range of eV, making only a conservative assumption that the black hole lifetimes are greater than 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.
arXiv comment15 pages, 7 figures
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