A Measurement of the Hubble Constant Using Gravitational Waves from the Binary Merger GW190814

Abstract

We present a test of the statistical method introduced by Bernard F. Shutz in 1986 using only gravitational waves to infer the Hubble constant (H0) from GW190814, the first high-probability neutron-star–black hole (NS–BH) merger candidate detected by the Laser Interferometer gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) and the Virgo interferometer. We apply a baseline test of this method to the binary neutron star (BNS) merger GW170817 and find km s−1 Mpc−1 (maximum a posteriori and 68.3% highest density posterior interval) for a galaxy B-band luminosity threshold of with a correction for catalog incompleteness. Repeating the calculation for GW190814, we obtain km s−1 Mpc−1 and km s−1 Mpc−1 for and , respectively. Combining the posteriors for both events yields km s−1 Mpc−1, demonstrating the improvement on constraints when using multiple gravitational-wave events. We also confirm the results of other works that adopt this method, showing that increasing the L B threshold enhances the posterior structure and slightly shifts the distribution’s peak to higher H0 values.We repeat the joint inference using the low-spin PhenomPNRT and the newly available combined (SEOBNRv4PHM + IMRPhenomPv3HM) posterior samples for GW170817 and GW190814, respectively, achieving a tighter constraint of km s−1 Mpc−1.

A pixelated approach to galaxy catalogue incompleteness: improving the dark siren measurement of the Hubble constant

“…The contribution from an individual event is less informative than in the counterpart case, but combining information from multiple events reduces the uncertainty and allows an additional constraint on 0 to be made (see, e.g. MacLeod & Hogan (2008); Chen et al (2018); Fishbach et al (2019); Soares-Santos et al (2019); Gray et al (2020); Abbott et al (2020); Palmese et al (2020); Vasylyev & Filippenko (2020); Finke et al (2021). An alternative, cross-correlating GW events with galaxies of known redshift, is presented in Mukherjee et al (2021)).…”

Gravitational waves: A review on the future astronomy

“…On 17 August 2017 by the collaboration of advanced LIGO and Virgo detector, a strong GW signal was observed from the BNS merger. That signal allowed to use GW170817 as a standard siren and for finding Hubble constant and that was, H0 = 69.0 −8.0 +16.0 km s -1 Mpc -1 (Abbott et al, 2021 The Astrophysical Journal; Vasylyev et al, 2020) [40,41] . By Hubble constant, the mean expansion rate of the universe can measure.…”

“…The orange curve is the signal of GW170817 BNS from host galaxy NGC4993. For the signal GW170814 DES-Y1 galaxy catalogue used and for other remaining signals BBHs, GW170809, GW170104, GW170608, GW151226, GW150914 GLADE catalogue was used (Vasylyev et al, 2020) [41] . With the vertical dash line, 68% maximum a-posteriori intervals are represented.…”

A Pixelated Approach to Galaxy Catalogue Incompleteness: Improving the Dark Siren Measurement of the Hubble Constant

“…The contribution from an individual event is less informative than in the counterpart case, but combining information from multiple events reduces the uncertainty and allows an additional constraint on 𝐻 0 to be made (see, e.g. MacLeod & Hogan (2008); Chen et al (2018); Fishbach et al (2019); Soares-Santos et al (2019); Gray et al (2020); Abbott et al (2020); Palmese et al (2020); Vasylyev & Filippenko (2020); Finke et al (2021)). One important aspect of this method is acknowledging that galaxy catalogues are incomplete, and therefore may not contain the real host galaxy of the GW event.…”