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Register a new userA Hubble constant measurement from superluminal motion of the jet in GW170817
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The Hubble constant ($H_0$) measures the current expansion rate of the Universe, and plays a fundamental role in cosmology. Tremendous effort has been dedicated over the past decades to measure $H_0$. Notably, Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) and the local Cepheid-supernovae distance ladder measurements determine $H_0$ with a precision of $sim 1%$ and $sim 2%$ respectively. A $3$-$sigma$ level of discrepancy exists between the two measurements, for reasons that have yet to be understood. Gravitational wave (GW) sources accompanied by electromagnetic (EM) counterparts offer a completely independent standard siren (the GW analogue of an astronomical standard candle) measurement of $H_0$, as demonstrated following the discovery of the neutron star merger, GW170817. This measurement does not assume a cosmological model and is independent of a cosmic distance ladder. The first joint analysis of the GW signal from GW170817 and its EM localization led to a measurement of $H_0=74^{+16}_{-8}$ km/s/Mpc (median and symmetric $68%$ credible interval). In this analysis, the degeneracy in the GW signal between the source distance and the weakly constrained viewing angle dominated the $H_0$ measurement uncertainty. Recently, Mooley et al. (2018) obtained tight constraints on the viewing angle using high angular resolution imaging of the radio counterpart of GW170817. Here we obtain a significantly improved measurement $H_0=68.9^{+4.7}_{-4.6}$ km/s/Mpc by using these new radio observations, combined with the previous GW and EM data. We estimate that 15 more localized GW170817-like events (comparable signal-to-noise ratio, favorable orientation), having radio images and light curve data, will potentially bring resolution to the tension between the Planck and Cepheid-supernova measurements, as compared to 50-100 GW events without such data.
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The binary neutron star merger GW170817 was accompanied by radiation across the electromagnetic spectrum and localized to the galaxy NGC 4993 at a distance of 41+/-3 Mpc. The radio and X-ray afterglows of GW170817 exhibited delayed onset, a gradual rise in the emission with time as t^0.8, a peak at about 150 days post-merger, followed by a relatively rapid decline. To date, various models have been proposed to explain the afterglow emission, including a choked-jet cocoon and a successful-jet cocoon (a.k.a. structured jet). However, the observational data have remained inconclusive as to whether GW170817 launched a successful relativistic jet. Here we show, through Very Long Baseline Interferometry, that the compact radio source associated with GW170817 exhibits superluminal motion between two epochs at 75 and 230 days post-merger. This measurement breaks the degeneracy between the models and indicates that, while the early-time radio emission was powered by a wider-angle outflow (cocoon), the late-time emission was most likely dominated by an energetic and narrowly-collimated jet, with an opening angle of <5 degrees, and observed from a viewing angle of about 20 degrees. The imaging of a collimated relativistic outflow emerging from GW170817 adds substantial weight to the growing evidence linking binary neutron star mergers and short gamma-ray bursts.
Progressive increases in the precision of the Hubble-constant measurement via Cepheid-calibrated Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) have shown a discrepancy of $sim 4.4sigma$ with the current value inferred from Planck satellite measurements of the cosmic microwave background radiation and the standard $Lambda$CDM cosmological model. This disagreement does not appear to be due to known systematic errors and may therefore be hinting at new fundamental physics. Although all of the current techniques have their own merits, further improvement in constraining the Hubble constant requires the development of as many independent methods as possible. In this work, we use SNe II as standardisable candles to obtain an independent measurement of the Hubble constant. Using 7 SNe II with host-galaxy distances measured from Cepheid variables or the tip of the red giant branch, we derive H$_0= 75.8^{+5.2}_{-4.9}$ km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$ (statistical errors only). Our value favours that obtained from the conventional distance ladder (Cepheids + SNe Ia) and exhibits a difference of 8.4 km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$ from the Planck $+Lambda$CDM value. Adding an estimate of the systematic errors (2.8 km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$) changes the $sim 1.7sigma$ discrepancy with Planck $+Lambda$CDM to $sim 1.4sigma$. Including the systematic errors and performing a bootstrap simulation, we confirm that the local H$_0$ value exceeds the value from the early Universe with a confidence level of 95%. As in this work we only exchange SNe II for SNe Ia to measure extragalactic distances, we demonstrate that there is no evidence that SNe Ia are the source of the H$_0$ tension.
We perform a statistical standard siren analysis of GW170817. Our analysis does not utilize knowledge of NGC 4993 as the unique host galaxy of the optical counterpart to GW170817. Instead, we consider each galaxy within the GW170817 localization region as a potential host; combining the redshift from each galaxy with the distance estimate from GW170817 provides an estimate of the Hubble constant, $H_0$. We then combine the $H_0$ values from all the galaxies to provide a final measurement of $H_0$. We explore the dependence of our results on the thresholds by which galaxies are included in our sample, as well as the impact of weighting the galaxies by stellar mass and star-formation rate. Considering all galaxies brighter than $0.01 L^star_B$ as equally likely to host a BNS merger, we find $H_0= 76^{+48}_{-23}$ km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$ (maximum a posteriori and 68.3% highest density posterior interval; assuming a flat $H_0$ prior in the range $left[ 10, 220 right]$ km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$). Restricting only to galaxies brighter than $0.626 L^star_B$ tightens the measurement to $H_0= 77^{+37}_{-18}$ km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$. We show that weighting the host galaxies by stellar mass or star-formation rate provides entirely consistent results with potentially tighter constraints. While these statistical estimates are inferior to the value from the counterpart standard siren measurement utilizing NGC 4993 as the unique host, $H_0=76^{+19}_{-13}$ km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$ (determined from the same publicly available data), our analysis is a proof-of-principle demonstration of the statistical approach first proposed by Bernard Schutz over 30 years ago.
The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) reported the event ZTF19abanrhr as a candidate electromagnetic (EM) counterpart at a redshift $z=0.438$ to the gravitational wave (GW) emission from the binary black hole merger GW190521. Assuming that ZTF19abanrhr is the {it bona fide} EM counterpart to GW190521, and using the GW luminosity distance estimate from three different waveforms NRSur7dq4, SEOBNRv4PHM, and IMRPhenomPv3HM, we report a measurement of the Hubble constant $H_0= 50.4_{-19.5}^{+28.1}$ km/s/Mpc, $ 62.2_{-19.7}^{+29.5}$ km/s/Mpc, and $ 43.1_{-11.4}^{+24.6}$ km/s/Mpc (median along with $68%$ credible interval) respectively after marginalizing over matter density $Omega_m$ (or dark energy equation of state $w_0$) assuming the flat LCDM (or wCDM) model. Combining our results with the binary neutron star event GW170817 with its redshift measurement alone, as well as with its inclination angle inferred from Very Large Baseline Interferometry (VLBI), we find $H_0= 67.6_{-4.2}^{+4.3}$ km/s/Mpc, $Omega_m= 0.47_{-0.27}^{+0.34}$, and $w_0= -1.17_{-0.57}^{+0.68}$ (median along with $68%$ credible interval) providing the most stringent measurement on $H_0$ and the first estimation on $Omega_m$ and $w_0$ from bright standard siren. In the future, $1.3%$ measurement of $H_0=68$ km/s/Mpc and $28%$ measurement of $w_0=-1$ is possible from about $200$ GW190521-like sources.
The detection of GW170817 and the identification of its host galaxy have allowed for the first standard-siren measurement of the Hubble constant, with an uncertainty of $sim 14%$. As more detections of binary neutron stars with redshift measurement are made, the uncertainty will shrink. The dominating factors will be the number of joint detections and the uncertainty on the luminosity distance of each event. Neutron star black hole mergers are also promising sources for advanced LIGO and Virgo. If the black hole spin induces precession of the orbital plane, the degeneracy between luminosity distance and the orbital inclination is broken, leading to a much better distance measurement. In addition neutron star black hole sources are observable to larger distances, owing to their higher mass. Neutron star black holes could also emit electromagnetic radiation: depending on the black hole spin and on the mass ratio, the neutron star can be tidally disrupted resulting in electromagnetic emission. We quantify the distance uncertainty for a wide range of black hole mass, spin and orientations and find that the 1-$sigma$ statistical uncertainty can be up to a factor of $sim 10$ better than for a non-spinning binary neutron star merger with the same signal-to-noise ratio. The better distance measurement, the larger gravitational-wave detectable volume, and the potentially bright electromagnetic emission, imply that spinning black hole neutron star binaries can be the optimal standard siren sources as long as their astrophysical rate is larger than $O(10)$ Gpc$^{-3}$yr$^{-1}$, a value allowed by current astrophysical constraints.
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