Gray, R. , Messenger, C. and Veitch, J. (2022) A pixelated approach to galaxy catalogue incompleteness: Improving the dark siren measurement of the Hubble constant. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 512(1), pp. 1127-1140. (doi: 10.1093/mnras/stac366)
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Abstract
The use of gravitational wave standard sirens for cosmological analyses is becoming well known, with particular interest in measuring the Hubble constant, H0, and in shedding light on the current tension between early- and late-time measurements. The current tension is over 4σ and standard sirens will be able to provide a completely independent measurement. Dark sirens (binary black hole or neutron star mergers with no electromagnetic counterparts) can be informative if the missing redshift information is provided through the use of galaxy catalogues to identify potential host galaxies of the merger. However, galaxy catalogue incompleteness affects this analysis, and accurate modelling of it is essential for obtaining an unbiased measurement of H0. Previously most methods have assumed uniform completeness within the sky area of a gravitational wave event. This paper presents an updated methodology in which the completeness of the galaxy catalogue is estimated in a directionally-dependent matter, by pixelating the sky and computing the completeness of the galaxy catalogue along each line of sight. The H0 inference for a single event is carried out on a pixel-by-pixel basis, and the pixels are combined for the final result. A reanalysis of the events in the first gravitational wave transient catalogue (GWTC-1) leads to an improvement on the measured value of H0 of approximately 5 per cent compared to the 68.3 per cent highest-density interval of the equivalent LIGO and Virgo result, with H0 = 68.8+15.9−7.8 km s−1 Mpc−1.
| Item Type: | Articles |
|---|---|
| Additional Information: | RG was supported by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (award number 1947165) and by ERC StG SHADE 949572. JV and CM are supported by the Science and Technology Research Council (grant No. ST/V005634/1). |
| Status: | Published |
| Refereed: | Yes |
| Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: | Veitch, Dr John and Gray, Dr Rachel and Messenger, Dr Christopher |
| Authors: | Gray, R., Messenger, C., and Veitch, J. |
| College/School: | College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy College of Science and Engineering > Scottish Universities Environmental Research Centre |
| Research Centre: | College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy > Institute for Gravitational Research |
| Journal Name: | Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society |
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
| ISSN: | 0035-8711 |
| ISSN (Online): | 1365-2966 |
| Published Online: | 11 February 2022 |
| Copyright Holders: | Copyright © 2022 The Author(s). |
| First Published: | First published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 512(1): 1127-1140 |
| Publisher Policy: | Reproduced under a Creative Commons license |
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