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Accessing the axion via compact object binaries

Black holes in binaries with other compact objects can provide natural venues for indirect detection of axions or other ultralight fields. The superradiant instability associated with a rapidly spinning black hole leads to the creation of an axion cloud which carries energy and angular momentum from the black hole. This cloud will then decay via gravitational wave emission. We show that the energy lost as a result of this process tends toward an outspiraling of the binary orbit. A given binary system is sensitive to a narrow range of axion masses, determined by the mass of the black hole. Pulsar-black hole binaries, once detected in the electromagnetic band, will allow high-precision measurements of black hole mass loss via timing measurements of the companion pulsar. This avenue of investigation is particularly promising in light of the recent preliminary announcements of two candidate black hole-neutron star mergers by LIGO/VIRGO (#S190814bv and #S190426c). We demonstrate that for such a binary system with a typical millisecond pulsar and a 3-solar-mass black hole, axions with masses between $2.7 \times 10^{-12}$ eV and $3.2 \times 10^{-12}$ eV are detectable. Recent gravitational wave observations by LIGO/VIRGO of binary black hole mergers imply that, for these binaries, gravitational radiation from the rotating quadrupole moment is a dominant effect, causing an inspiraling orbit. With some reasonable assumptions about the period of the binary when it formed and the spins of the black holes, these observations rule out possible axion masses between $3 \times 10^{-13}$ eV and $6 \times 10^{-13}$ eV. Future binary black hole observations, for example by LISA, are expected to provide more robust bounds. In some circumstances, neutron stars may also undergo superradiant instabilities, and binary pulsars could be used to exclude axions with certain masses and matter couplings.