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Search for high-frequency gravitational waves via reanalysis of cavity axion data

Younggeun Kim1,2,3,*, Jordan Gué4, Changhao Xu1,2,3, Diego Blas4,5, Dmitry Budker1,2,3,6, Sungjae Bae7,8, Claudio Gatti9, Junu Jeong10, Jihn E. Kim11 et al.

Kiwoong Lee8, Arjan F. van Loo12,13,†, Yasunobu Nakamura12,13, Seonjeong Oh7,8, Wolfram Ratzinger14, Taehyeon Seong7,8, Yannis K. Semertzidis8,15, Kristof Schmieden16, Mattias Schott16, Sergey Uchaikin7,8, and SungWoo Youn7,8

  • *Contact author: kimyoung@uni-mainz.de
  • †Present address: Alice & Bob, 49 Boulevard Du Général Martial Valin, Paris 75015, France.
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Phys. Rev. D 113, 072015 – Published 24 April, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/yqms-lznb

Abstract

Monochromatic high-frequency gravitational waves (HFGWs) provide a distinctive probe of new physics scenarios, most notably axion clouds around rotating black holes formed via superradiance. We reanalyzed data from the CAPP-12T multicell axion haloscope experiment [Kim et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 051802 (2024)]. The study covers a continuous 2 MHz frequency span centered at 5.311 GHz. No rescan candidates were found, and we set 90% confidence-level exclusion limits on the gravitational-wave strain, reaching h0≈3.9×10−21 in the most sensitive regions of the sky. Interpreted in the context of black hole superradiance from axion clouds, the results exclude black holes with mass MBH≃1.22×10−6M⊙ within distances of O(10−2) AU from Earth, under benchmark assumptions. This work demonstrates the potential of electromagnetic resonant cavities as novel detectors of monochromatic HFGWs and motivates future searches for both long-lived and transient signals.

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Phys. Rev. D 113, 072015– Published 24 April, 2026
  • Received 1 December 2025
  • Accepted 30 March 2026
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