Multiband gravitational-wave searches for ultralight bosons. (arXiv:2007.12793v1 [gr-qc])
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/gr-qc/1/au:+Ng_K/0/1/0/all/0/1">Ken K. Y. Ng</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/gr-qc/1/au:+Isi_M/0/1/0/all/0/1">Maximiliano Isi</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/gr-qc/1/au:+Haster_C/0/1/0/all/0/1">Carl-Johan Haster</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/gr-qc/1/au:+Vitale_S/0/1/0/all/0/1">Salvatore Vitale</a>
Gravitational waves may be one of the few direct observables produced by
ultralight bosons, conjectured dark matter candidates that could be the key to
several problems in particle theory, high-energy physics and cosmology. These
axion-like particles could spontaneously form “clouds” around astrophysical
black holes, leading to potent emission of continuous gravitational waves that
could be detected by instruments on the ground and in space. Although this
scenario has been thoroughly studied, it has not been yet appreciated that both
types of detector may be used in tandem (a practice known as “multibanding”).
In this paper, we show that future gravitational-wave detectors on the ground
and in space will be able to work together to detect ultralight bosons with
masses $25 lesssim mu/left(10^{-15}, mathrm{eV}right)lesssim 500$. In
detecting binary-black-hole inspirals, the LISA space mission will provide
crucial information enabling future ground-based detectors, like Cosmic
Explorer or Einstein Telescope, to search for signals from boson clouds around
the individual black holes in the observed binaries. We lay out the detection
strategy and, focusing on scalar bosons, chart the suitable parameter space. We
study the impact of ignorance about the system’s history, including cloud age
and black hole spin. We also consider the tidal resonances that may destroy the
boson cloud before its gravitational signal becomes detectable by a
ground-based followup. Finally, we show how to take all of these factors into
account, together with uncertainties in the LISA measurement, to obtain boson
mass constraints from the ground-based observation facilitated by LISA.
Gravitational waves may be one of the few direct observables produced by
ultralight bosons, conjectured dark matter candidates that could be the key to
several problems in particle theory, high-energy physics and cosmology. These
axion-like particles could spontaneously form “clouds” around astrophysical
black holes, leading to potent emission of continuous gravitational waves that
could be detected by instruments on the ground and in space. Although this
scenario has been thoroughly studied, it has not been yet appreciated that both
types of detector may be used in tandem (a practice known as “multibanding”).
In this paper, we show that future gravitational-wave detectors on the ground
and in space will be able to work together to detect ultralight bosons with
masses $25 lesssim mu/left(10^{-15}, mathrm{eV}right)lesssim 500$. In
detecting binary-black-hole inspirals, the LISA space mission will provide
crucial information enabling future ground-based detectors, like Cosmic
Explorer or Einstein Telescope, to search for signals from boson clouds around
the individual black holes in the observed binaries. We lay out the detection
strategy and, focusing on scalar bosons, chart the suitable parameter space. We
study the impact of ignorance about the system’s history, including cloud age
and black hole spin. We also consider the tidal resonances that may destroy the
boson cloud before its gravitational signal becomes detectable by a
ground-based followup. Finally, we show how to take all of these factors into
account, together with uncertainties in the LISA measurement, to obtain boson
mass constraints from the ground-based observation facilitated by LISA.
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