Is there a standard measuring rod in the Universe?

Abstract

The Caltech-Jodrell Bank very long baseline interferometry (VLBI) Surveys give detailed 5 GHz VLBI images of several hundred milliarcsecond (mas) radio sources, and the full width at half-maximum angular sizes of the corresponding compact cores. Using the latter, I have constructed an angular-diameter/redshift diagram comprising 271 objects, which shows clearly the expected features of such a diagram, without redshift binning. Cosmological parameters are derived which are compatible with existing concensus values, particularly when the VLBI data are combined with recent Baryon Accoustic Oscillations observations; the figures are presented as indications of what might be expected of larger samples of similar data. The importance of beaming and relativistic motion towards the observer is stressed; a model of the latter indicates that the emitting material is close to the observer's line of sight and moving with a velocity which brings it close to the observer's rest frame. With respect to linear size, these objects compare well in variance with type Ia supernovae; the efficacy of the latter is improved by the brighter-slower and brighter-bluer correlations, and by the inverse-square law.

5 pages, 3 figures

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• Finding a Spherically Symmetric Cosmology from Observations in Observational Coordinates -- Advantages and Challenges
• Cosmic Acceleration and Geodesic Deviation in Chameleon Scalar Field Model
• Model Selection based on the Angular-Diameter Distance to the Compact Structure in Radio Quasars
• Geodesic deviation equation in generalized hybrid Metric-Palatini gravity
• Revisiting the angular size-redshift cosmological test with milliarcsecond radio structures in active galactic nuclei