No Arabic abstract
The $Lambda$CDM model successfully explains the majority of cosmological observations. However, the $ Lambda$CDM model is challenged by Hubble tension, a remarkable difference of Hubble constant $H_0$ between measurements from local probe and the prediction from Planck cosmic microwave background observations under $ Lambda$CDM model. So one urgently needs new distance indicators to test the Hubble tension. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are millisecond-duration pulses occurring at cosmological distances, which are attractive cosmological probes. However, there is a thorny problem that the dispersion measures (DMs) contributed by host galaxy and the inhomogeneities of intergalactic medium cannot be exactly determined from observations. Previous works assuming fixed values for them bring uncontrolled systematic error in analysis. A reasonable approach is to handle them as probability distributions extracted from cosmological simulations. Here we report a measurement of ${H_0} = 64.67^{+5.62}_{-4.66} {rm km s^{-1} Mpc^{-1}}$ using fourteen localized FRBs, with an uncertainty of 8.7% at 68.3 per cent confidence. Thanks to the high event rate of FRBs and localization capability of radio telescopes (i.e., Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder and Very Large Array), future observations of a reasonably sized sample ($sim$100 localized FRBs) will provide a new way of measuring $ H_0$ with a high precision ($sim$2.6%) to test the Hubble tension.
Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are very short and bright transients visible over extragalactic distances. The radio pulse undergoes dispersion caused by free electrons along the line of sight, most of which are associated with the large-scale structure (LSS). The total dispersion measure therefore increases with the line of sight and provides a distance estimate to the source. We present the first measurement of the Hubble constant using the dispersion measure -- redshift relation of FRBs with identified host counterpart and corresponding redshift information. A sample of nine currently available FRBs yields a constraint of $H_0 = 62.3 pm 9.1 ,rm{km} ,rm{s}^{-1},rm{Mpc}^{-1}$, accounting for uncertainty stemming from the LSS, host halo and Milky Way contributions to the observed dispersion measure. The main current limitation is statistical, and we estimate that a few hundred events with corresponding redshifts are sufficient for a per cent measurement of $H_0$. This is a number well within reach of ongoing FRB searches. We perform a forecast using a realistic mock sample to demonstrate that a high-precision measurement of the expansion rate is possible without relying on other cosmological probes. FRBs can therefore arbitrate the current tension between early and late time measurements of $H_0$ in the near future.
More than three quarters of the baryonic content of the Universe resides in a highly diffuse state that is difficult to observe, with only a small fraction directly observed in galaxies and galaxy clusters. Censuses of the nearby Universe have used absorption line spectroscopy to observe these invisible baryons, but these measurements rely on large and uncertain corrections and are insensitive to the majority of the volume, and likely mass. Specifically, quasar spectroscopy is sensitive either to only the very trace amounts of Hydrogen that exists in the atomic state, or highly ionized and enriched gas in denser regions near galaxies. Sunyaev-Zeldovich analyses provide evidence of some of the gas in filamentary structures and studies of X-ray emission are most sensitive to gas near galaxy clusters. Here we report the direct measurement of the baryon content of the Universe using the dispersion of a sample of localized fast radio bursts (FRBs), thus utilizing an effect that measures the electron column density along each sight line and accounts for every ionised baryon. We augment the sample of published arcsecond-localized FRBs with a further four new localizations to host galaxies which have measured redshifts of 0.291, 0.118, 0.378 and 0.522, completing a sample sufficiently large to account for dispersion variations along the line of sight and in the host galaxy environment to derive a cosmic baryon density of $Omega_{b} = 0.051_{-0.025}^{+0.021} , h_{70}^{-1}$ (95% confidence). This independent measurement is consistent with Cosmic Microwave Background and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis values.
We explore a novel search strategy for dark matter in the form of massive compact halo objects (MACHOs) such as primordial black holes or dense mini-halos in the mass range from $10^{-4}$ to 0.1 solar masses. These objects can gravitationally lens the signal of fast radio bursts (FRBs), producing a characteristic interference pattern in the frequency spectrum, similar to the previously studied femtolensing signal in gamma ray burst spectra. Unlike traditional searches using microlensing, FRB lensing will probe the abundance of MACHOs at cosmological distance scales (~Gpc) rather than just their distribution in the neighborhood of the Milky Way. The method is thus particularly relevant for dark mini-halos, which may be inaccessible to microlensing due to their finite spatial extent or tidal disruption in galaxies. We find that the main complication in FRB lensing will be interstellar scintillation in the FRBs host galaxy and in the Milky Way. Scintillation is difficult to quantify because it heavily depends on turbulence in the interstellar medium, which is poorly understood. We show that, nevertheless, for realistic scintillation parameters, FRB lensing can set competitive limits on compact dark matter object, and we back our findings with explicit simulations.
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.
Understanding the origin of fast radio bursts (FRBs) is a central unsolved problem in astrophysics that is severely hampered by their poorly determined distance scale. Determining the redshift distribution of FRBs appears to require arcsecond angular resolution, in order to associate FRBs with host galaxies. In this paper, we forecast prospects for determining the redshift distribution without host galaxy associations, by cross-correlating FRBs with a galaxy catalog such as the SDSS photometric sample. The forecasts are extremely promising: a survey such as CHIME/FRB that measures catalogs of $sim 10^3$ FRBs with few-arcminute angular resolution can place strong constraints on the FRB redshift distribution, by measuring the cross-correlation as a function of galaxy redshift $z$ and FRB dispersion measure $D$. In addition, propagation effects from free electron inhomogeneities modulate the observed FRB number density, either by shifting FRBs between dispersion measure (DM) bins or through DM-dependent selection effects. We show that these propagation effects, coupled with the spatial clustering between galaxies and free electrons, can produce FRB-galaxy correlations which are comparable to the intrinsic clustering signal. Such effects can be disentangled based on their angular and $(z, D)$ dependence, providing an opportunity to study not only FRBs but the clustering of free electrons.