Search for ultralight bosons in Cygnus X-1 with Advanced LIGO

Ultralight scalars, if they exist as theorized, could form clouds around rapidly rotating black holes. Such clouds are expected to emit continuous, quasimonochromatic gravitational waves that could be detected by LIGO and Virgo. Here we present results of a directed search for such signals from the Cygnus X-1 binary, using data from Advanced LIGO’s second observing run. We find no evidence of gravitational waves in the 250–750 Hz band. Without incorporating existing measurements of the Cygnus X-1 black hole spin, our results disfavor boson masses in the range 5.8 ≤ μ/(10⁻¹³  eV) ≤ 8.6, assuming that the black hole was born 5×10⁶  years ago with a nearly extremal spin. We then focus on a string axiverse scenario, in which self-interactions enable a cloud for high black-hole spins consistent with measurements for Cygnus X-1. In that model, we constrain the boson masses in the range 9.6≤μ/(10⁻¹³  eV) ≤ 15.5 for a decay constant f_a∼10¹⁵  GeV. Future applications of our methods to other sources will yield improved constraints.