Gravitational wave searches for ultralight bosons with LIGO and LISA

Richard Brito, Shrobana Ghosh, Enrico Barausse, Emanuele Berti, Vitor Cardoso, Irina Dvorkin, Antoine Klein, and Paolo Pani
Phys. Rev. D 96, 064050 – Published 27 September 2017

Abstract

Ultralight bosons can induce superradiant instabilities in spinning black holes, tapping their rotational energy to trigger the growth of a bosonic condensate. Possible observational imprints of these boson clouds include (i) direct detection of the nearly monochromatic (resolvable or stochastic) gravitational waves emitted by the condensate, and (ii) statistically significant evidence for the formation of “holes” at large spins in the spin versus mass plane (sometimes also referred to as “Regge plane”) of astrophysical black holes. In this work, we focus on the prospects of LISA and LIGO detecting or constraining scalars with mass in the range ms[1019,1015]eV and ms[1014,1011]eV, respectively. Using astrophysical models of black-hole populations calibrated to observations and black-hole perturbation theory calculations of the gravitational emission, we find that, in optimistic scenarios, LIGO could observe a stochastic background of gravitational radiation in the range ms[2×1013,1012]eV, and up to 104 resolvable events in a 4-year search if ms3×1013eV. LISA could observe a stochastic background for boson masses in the range ms[5×1019,5×1016], and up to 103 resolvable events in a 4-year search if ms1017eV. LISA could further measure spins for black-hole binaries with component masses in the range [103,107]M, which is not probed by traditional spin-measurement techniques. A statistical analysis of the spin distribution of these binaries could either rule out scalar fields in the mass range [4×1018,1014]eV, or measure ms with ten percent accuracy if light scalars in the mass range [1017,1013]eV exist.

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  • Received 23 June 2017

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.96.064050

© 2017 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Authors & Affiliations

Richard Brito1,*, Shrobana Ghosh2, Enrico Barausse3, Emanuele Berti2,4, Vitor Cardoso4,5, Irina Dvorkin3,6, Antoine Klein3, and Paolo Pani7,4

  • 1Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute), Am Mühlenberg 1, Potsdam-Golm 14476, Germany
  • 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Mississippi, University, Mississippi 38677, USA
  • 3Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 6 & CNRS, UMR 7095, 98 bis bd Arago, 75014 Paris, France
  • 4CENTRA, Departamento de Física, Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, Avenida Rovisco Pais 1, 1049 Lisboa, Portugal
  • 5Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, 31 Caroline Street North Waterloo, Ontario N2L 2Y5, Canada
  • 6Institut Lagrange de Paris (ILP), Sorbonne Universités, 98 bis bd Arago, 75014 Paris, France
  • 7Dipartimento di Fisica, “Sapienza” Università di Roma & Sezione INFN Roma1, Piazzale Aldo Moro 5, 00185 Roma, Italy

  • *richard.brito@aei.mpg.de

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Issue

Vol. 96, Iss. 6 — 15 September 2017

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