First Constraints on Nuclear Coupling of Axionlike Particles from the Binary Neutron Star Gravitational Wave Event GW170817

Gravitational Waves: The Theorist’s Swiss Knife

“…The null result constrained axions with masses below 10 −11 eV by excluding the ones with decay constants ranging from 1.6 × 10 16 GeV to 10 18 GeV at a 3σ confidence level. This is the first constraint on axions imposed from neutron star inspirals [19].…”

“…The effects of the axion field in the waveform template can be parametrised by the axion mass m a and a dimensionless parameter γ a ≡ Q 1 Q 2 /(4πGM 1 M 2 ) that characterises the relative strength of the axion and gravitational forces between the two neutron stars. Performing a Bayesian analysis of GW17081, the posterior distribution over the waveform parameters suggests no significant evidence for such axion fields [19]. The null result constrained axions with masses below 10 −11 eV by excluding the ones with decay constants ranging from 1.6 × 10 16 GeV to 10 18 GeV at a 3σ confidence level.…”

“…Subsequently, a search for such axions has been conducted [19] by analysing the gravitational waves from the binary neutron star inspiral GW170817. Let us write the frequency domain waveform as [19] h…”

“…Gravitational waves provide valuable information on astrophysical models of compact objects [6][7][8], the cosmic history of the universe [9,10], and the large-scale structure [11] independently of electromagnetic waves and corresponding observational tools like the cosmic microwave background. In addition, gravitational waves offer the means to test early universe processes [12][13][14], beyond the Standard Model particle physics at energy scales that cannot be reached by current or near-future particle accelerators [15,16], dark matter candidates [17][18][19][20][21], Einstein's theory of General Relativity [22,23], modified/extended gravity proposals [17,[24][25][26], and even quantum gravity candidate theories [27][28][29][30].…”

Gravitational Waves: the theorist's Swiss knife

“…Gravitational waves provide valuable information on astrophysical models of compact objects [6][7][8], the cosmic history of the universe [9,10], and the large-scale structure [11] independently of electromagnetic waves and corresponding observational tools like the cosmic microwave background. In addition, gravitational waves offer the means to test early universe processes [12][13][14], beyond the Standard Model particle physics at energy scales that cannot be reached by current or near-future particle accelerators [15,16], dark matter candidates [17][18][19][20][21], Einstein's theory of General Relativity [22,23], modified/extended gravity proposals [17,[24][25][26], and even quantum gravity candidate theories [27][28][29][30].…”