Gravitational waves from binary axionic black holes

Abstract

In a recent paper we have shown that a minimally coupled, self-interacting scalar field of mass $m$ can form black holes of mass $M=\sqrt{3}/(4m)$ (in Planck units). If dark matter is composed by axions, they can form miniclusters that for QCD axions have masses below this value. In this work it is shown that for a scenario in which the axion mass depends on the temperature as $m \propto T^{-6}$, minicluster masses above $0.32\,M_\odot$, corresponding to an axion mass of $3\times 10^{-10}$ eV, exceed $M$ and can collapse into black holes. If a fraction of these black holes is in binary systems, gravitational waves emitted during the inspiral phase could be detected by advanced interferometers like LIGO or VIRGO and by the planned Einstein Telescope. For a detection rate of one event per year, the lower limits on the binary fraction are $10^{-4}$ and $10^{-6}$ for LIGO and Einstein Telescope respectively.