Stochastic gravitational-wave background from self-interacting superradiant clouds

Abstract

Gravitational-wave (GW) observations offer a powerful probe of new fundamental fields. One well-motivated source is black hole (BH)--boson cloud systems, in which an ultralight scalar field forms a cloud around a rotating BH via superradiance and emits long-lived nearly monochromatic GWs. In this work, we compute the stochastic GW background (SGWB) from such systems, extending previous work by including scalar self-interactions, and discuss its detectability with next-generation ground-based GW detectors. We find that self-interactions can suppress the SGWB and thereby relax existing LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA constraints inferred from null searches. Namely, the LIGO detectors at design sensitivity are insensitive to a SGWB produced by scalar fields with a decay constant $f_\mathrm{s} \lesssim 3\times 10^{17}$ GeV, independently of the scalar field mass. Looking ahead, we show that a moderately self-interacting cloud can still produce a detectable SGWB with next-generation detectors. Under conservative assumptions, for a decay constant $f_\mathrm{s} = 10^{17}$ GeV, the Einstein Telescope (ET) will be sensitive to scalar masses in the range $\sim[10^{-13.0},10^{-11.8}]$ eV, while Cosmic Explorer (CE) will be sensitive to scalar masses in the range $\sim[10^{-13.2},10^{-11.7}]$ eV. We also find that the minimum decay constants that still yield a detectable SGWB for ET and CE are $f_\mathrm{s}\sim 6\times10^{16}\,$GeV and $\sim 3\times10^{16}\,$GeV, respectively.