The Hubble Constant

Abstract

Considerable progress has been made in determining the Hubble constant over the past two decades. We discuss the cosmological context and importance of an accurate measurement of the Hubble constant, and focus on six high-precision distance-determination methods: Cepheids, tip of the red giant branch, maser galaxies, surface brightness fluctuations, the Tully-Fisher relation and Type Ia supernovae. We discuss in detail known systematic errors in the measurement of galaxy distances and how to minimize them. Our best current estimate of the Hubble constant is 73 +/-2 (random) +/-4 (systematic) km/s/Mpc. The importance of improved accuracy in the Hubble constant will increase over the next decade with new missions and experiments designed to increase the precision in other cosmological parameters. We outline the steps that will be required to deliver a value of the Hubble constant to 2% systematic uncertainty and discuss the constraints on other cosmological parameters that will then be possible with such accuracy.

To be published in Annual Reviews of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Vol. 48, 2010, consisting of 79 pages, 13 figures, 2 tables

References in corpus (24)

• Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Cosmological Interpretation
• Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Likelihoods and Parameters from the WMAP data
• Improved Dark Energy Constraints from ~100 New CfA Supernova Type Ia Light Curves
• An Ultraviolet-to-Radio Broadband Spectral Atlas of Nearby Galaxies
• The Carnegie Supernova Project: First Photometry Data Release of Low-Redshift Type Ia Supernovae
• Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Angular Power Spectra
• The Carnegie Supernova Project: Analysis of the First Sample of Low-Redshift Type-Ia Supernovae
• High resolution CMB power spectrum from the complete ACBAR data set
• A new Cepheid distance to the maser-host galaxy NGC 4258 and its implications for the Hubble Constant
• The influence of chemical composition on the properties of Cepheid stars. II-The iron content
• A new calibration of Galactic Cepheid Period-Luminosity relations from B to K bands, and a comparison to LMC PL relations
• Type Ia Supernovae are Good Standard Candles in the Near Infrared: Evidence from PAIRITEL
• Cepheid Calibrations of Modern Type Ia Supernovae:Implications for the Hubble Constant
• Toward a New Distance to the Active Galaxy NGC 4258: II. Centripetal Accelerations and Investigation of Spiral Structure
• Sharpening the Tip of the Red Giant Branch
• Cepheids in external galaxies. I. The maser-host galaxy NGC 4258 and the metallicity dependence of P-L and P-W relations
• Metallicity-corrected Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distance to NGC 4258
• The expansion field: The value of H_0
• Color-Magnitude Diagrams of Resolved Stars in Virgo Cluster Dwarf Galaxies
• Testing the nonlinearity of the BVIcJHKs period-luminosity relations for the Large Magellanic Cloud Cepheids
• The Cepheid Period-Luminosity Relation at Mid-Infrared Wavelengths: I. First-Epoch LMC Data
• Optical Surface Brightness Fluctuations of shell galaxies towards 100 Mpc
• The Resolved Stellar Populations of a Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy in the Virgo Cluster
• The State of Cepheid Pulsation Theory

Cited by in corpus (236)

• A 2.4% Determination of the Local Value of the Hubble Constant
• A 3% Solution: Determination of the Hubble Constant with the Hubble Space Telescope and Wide Field Camera 3
• Observational Probes of Cosmic Acceleration
• Improved constraints on the expansion rate of the Universe up to z~1.1 from the spectroscopic evolution of cosmic chronometers
• The Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program. VIII. An Independent Determination of the Hubble Constant Based on the Tip of the Red Giant Branch
• Cosmological implications of baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements
• An eclipsing binary distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud accurate to 2 per cent
• A distance to the Large Magellanic Cloud that is precise to one per cent
• New physics in light of the $H_0$ tension: an alternative view
• The Ages of 55 Globular Clusters as Determined Using an Improved delta V_TO^HB Method Along with Color-Magnitude Diagram Constraints, and Their Implications for Broader Issues
• Carnegie Hubble Program: A Mid-Infrared Calibration of the Hubble Constant
• Testing General Relativity in Cosmology
• The 1% Concordance Hubble Constant
• Two accurate time-delay distances from strong lensing: Implications for cosmology
• Tests of Chameleon Gravity
• H0 Revisited
• The Carnegie Supernova Project: Light Curve Fitting with SNooPy
• The Megamaser Cosmology Project. III. Accurate Masses of Seven Supermassive Black Holes in Active Galaxies with Circumnuclear Megamaser Disks
• Theoretical Models of Dark Energy
• A buyer's guide to the Hubble Constant
• Modified gravitational-wave propagation and standard sirens
• The Carnegie Supernova Project: Absolute Calibration and the Hubble Constant
• Neutrino Mass Ordering from Oscillations and Beyond: 2018 Status and Future Prospects
• Astrophysical Tests of Modified Gravity: Constraints from Distance Indicators in the Nearby Universe
• The Foundation Supernova Survey: Motivation, Design, Implementation, and First Data Release
• Clarifying the Hubble constant tension with a Bayesian hierarchical model of the local distance ladder
• A Precise Distance to the Host Galaxy of the Binary Neutron Star Merger GW170817 Using Surface Brightness Fluctuations
• Median statistics and the Hubble constant
• The formation of fullerenes: clues from new C60, C70, and (possible) planar C24 detections in Magellanic Cloud Planetary Nebulae
• Supermassive black holes with high accretion rates in active galactic nuclei: II. the most luminous standard candles in the Universe
• A measurement of the Hubble constant from Type II supernovae
• A blinded determination of $H_0$ from low-redshift Type Ia supernovae, calibrated by Cepheid variables
• The Palomar Transient Factory Core-Collapse Supernova Host-Galaxy Sample. I. Host-Galaxy Distribution Functions and Environment-Dependence of CCSNe
• A new measurement of the Hubble constant using Type Ia supernovae calibrated with surface brightness fluctuations
• The Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program. I. An Independent Approach to the Extragalactic Distance Scale Using only Population II Distance Indicators
• New Observational $H(z)$ Data from Full-Spectrum Fitting of Cosmic Chronometers in the LEGA-C Survey
• COSMOGRAIL: the COSmological MOnitoring of GRAvItational Lenses IX. Time delays, lens dynamics and baryonic fraction in HE 0435-1223
• A Compendium of Chameleon Constraints
• Supernova cosmology: legacy and future
• Surface Brightness Fluctuations in the Hubble Space Telescope ACS/WFC F814W Bandpass and an Update on Galaxy Distances
• Precision cosmology defeats void models for acceleration
• Sample variance in the local measurements of the Hubble constant
• The Next Generation Virgo Cluster Survey (NGVS). XVIII. Measurement and Calibration of Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distances for Bright Galaxies in Virgo (and Beyond)
• Calibrating the Cepheid Period-Luminosity relation from the infrared surface brightness technique II. The effect of metallicity, and the distance to the LMC
• Constraints on massive sterile neutrino species from current and future cosmological data
• The Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances to Type Ia Supernova Host Galaxies. IV. Color Dependence and Zero-Point Calibration
• The Megamaser Cosmology Project VIII. A Geometric Distance to NGC 5765b
• An independent determination of the local Hubble constant
• Determining $H_0$ with Bayesian hyper-parameters
• Old-Aged Stellar Population Distance Indicators
• The Novel Probes Project -- Tests of Gravity on Astrophysical Scales
• Testing Screened Modified Gravity
• Hubble tension or a transition of the Cepheid SnIa calibrator parameters?
• The Baryonic Tully-Fisher Relationship for S${}^4$G Galaxies and the "Condensed" Baryon Fraction of Galaxies
• A new measurement of the Hubble constant and matter content of the Universe using extragalactic background light $\gamma$-ray attenuation
• Future CMB tests of dark matter: ultra-light axions and massive neutrinos
• On the distance of the Magellanic Clouds using Cepheid NIR and optical-NIR Period Wesenheit Relations
• The Carnegie Hubble Program: The Leavitt Law at 3.6 and 4.5 micron in the Milky Way
• The Taipan Galaxy Survey: Scientific Goals and Observing Strategy
• SN 2009N: Linking normal and subluminous type II-P SNe
• The Large Magellanic Cloud and the Distance Scale
• The Distance to M51
• Morphology of Galaxy Clusters: A Cosmological Model-Independent Test of the Cosmic Distance-Duality Relation
• A 5% measurement of the Hubble constant from Type II supernovae
• Cosmic variance of the local Hubble flow in large-scale cosmological simulations
• The Carnegie Hubble Program: The Leavitt Law at 3.6 μm and 4.5 μm in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Revisit of the interacting holographic dark energy model after Planck 2015
• Neutron Star Mergers and How to Study Them
• Determining the Hubble constant using Giant extragalactic HII regions and HII galaxies
• A 2% Distance to z = 0.35 by Reconstructing Baryon Acoustic Oscillations - III : Cosmological Measurements and Interpretation
• Cepheid theoretical models and observations in HST/WFC3 filters: the effect on the Hubble constant Ho
• Stellar Oscillations in Modified Gravity
• A New Method for Measuring Extragalactic Distances
• Revisit of the Interaction between Holographic Dark Energy and Dark Matter
• CLUMPY v3: $\gamma$-ray and $\nu$ signals from dark matter at all scales
• Redshift-Independent Distances in the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database: Methodology, Content and Use of NED-D
• H0LiCOW II. Spectroscopic survey and galaxy-group identification of the strong gravitational lens system HE0435-1223
• Reconciling the local void with the CMB
• Parallax of Galactic Cepheids from Spatially Scanning the Wide Field Camera 3 on the Hubble Space Telescope: The Case of SS Canis Majoris
• The Carnegie Hubble Program
• Stellar Structure and Tests of Modified Gravity
• New NIR light-curve templates for classical Cepheids
• A revised planetary nebula luminosity function distance to NGC 628 using MUSE
• A parallax distance to 3C 273 through spectroastrometry and reverberation mapping
• The Arecibo HII Region Discovery Survey
• The Araucaria Project. A Distance Determination to the Local Group Spiral M33 from Near-Infrared Photometry of Cepheid Variables
• Revisiting the abundance gradient in the maser host galaxy NGC 4258
• Uncertainty Aware Learning for High Energy Physics
• On the metallicity distribution of classical Cepheids in the Galactic inner disk
• The Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program. VII. The Distance to M101 via the Optical Tip of the Red Giant Branch Method
• An alternative to the LCDM model: the case of scale invariance
• Probing the neutrino mass hierarchy with CMB weak lensing
• Is there a concordance value for $H_0$?
• A measurement of the Hubble constant using galaxy redshift surveys
• Infrared Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distances for MASSIVE and Type Ia Supernova Host Galaxies
• $H_0$ from ten well-measured time delay lenses
• A Preliminary Calibration of the RR Lyrae Period-Luminosity Relation at Mid-Infrared Wavelengths: WISE Data
• A geometrical 1% distance to the short-period binary Cepheid V1334 Cygni
• A Global Physical Model for Cepheids
• Galaxies Probing Galaxies at High Resolution: Co-Rotating Gas Associated with a Milky Way Analog at z=0.4
• Measurement of the expansion rate of the Universe from γ-ray attenuation
• On the Application of Wesenheit Function in Deriving Distance to Galactic Cepheids
• Exploring the evidence for a large local void with supernovae Ia data
• Beyond H_0 and q_0: Cosmology is no longer just two numbers
• High-precision distance measurements with classical pulsating stars
• The Araucaria Project: The First-Overtone Classical Cepheid in the Eclipsing System OGLE-LMC-CEP-2532
• The VMC Survey -- XLVIII. Classical Cepheids unveil the 3D geometry of the LMC
• Astronomical Distance Determination in the Space Age. Secondary distance indicators
• Cosmicflows-2: SNIa Calibration and H0
• Constraining the dark energy models using Baryon Acoustic Oscillations: An approach independent of $H_0\cdot r_d$
• Galaxy cluster number count data constraints on cosmological parameters
• The Araucaria Project. Accurate determination of the dynamical mass of the classical Cepheid in the eclipsing system OGLE-LMC-CEP-1812
• The Local Distance Network: a community consensus report on the measurement of the Hubble constant at 1% precision
• The Secret Lives of Cepheids: $\delta$ Cep -- the Prototype of a New Class of Pulsating X-ray Variable Stars
• Measuring Infrared Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distances with HST WFC3: Calibration and Advice
• WISE TF: A Mid-infrared, 3.4-micron Extension of the Tully-Fisher Relation Using WISE Photometry
• The Carnegie Chicago Hubble Program X: Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances to NGC 5643 and NGC 1404
• Screened Fifth Forces Mediated by Dark Matter-Baryon Interactions: Theory and Astrophysical Probes
• On Cepheid Distance Scale Bias due to Stellar Companions and Cluster Populations
• The evolution of the [OII], Hβ and [OIII] emission-line luminosity functions over the last nine billions years
• The Secret Lives of Cepheids: Evolutionary Changes and Pulsation-Induced Shock Heating in the Prototype Classical Cepheid δ Cep
• The [O III] Nebula of the Merger Remnant NGC 7252: A Likely Faint Ionization Echo
• The Distance to M101 Hosting Type Ia SN 2011fe Based on the Tip of the Red Giant Branch
• No-go guide for late-time solutions to the Hubble tension: Matter perturbations
• An updated measurement of the Hubble constant from near-infrared observations of Type Ia supernovae
• The distance to NGC1316 (Fornax A): yet another curious case
• The Araucaria Project: A study of the classical Cepheid in the eclipsing binary system OGLE LMC562.05.9009 in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Concerning the Classical Cepheid VIc Wesenheit Function's Strong Metallicity Dependence
• ALMA Observations of a Quiescent Molecular Cloud in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Umbrella sampling: a powerful method to sample tails of distributions
• The Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances to Type Ia Supernova Host Galaxies. III. NGC 4038/39 and NGC 5584
• Asymptotic behavior of a scalar field with an arbitrary potential trapped on a Randall-Sundrum's braneworld: the effect of a negative dark radiation term on a Bianchi I brane
• Effects of type Ia supernovae absolute magnitude priors on the Hubble constant value
• The M31 Near-Infrared Period-Luminosity Relation and its non-linearity for $\delta$ Cep Variables with $0.5\le \log (P)\le 1.7$
• The Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distance to the Perfect Spiral Galaxy M74 Hosting Three Core-Collapse Supernovae
• The Structure of the Strongly Lensed Gamma-ray Source B2 0218+35
• The Scale-Invariant Vacuum (SIV) Theory: A Possible Origin of Dark Matter and Dark Energy
• The absolute age of the globular cluster M15 using near-infrared adaptive optics images from PISCES/LBT
• On a new and homogeneous metallicity scale for Galactic classical Cepheids - I. Physical parameters
• The Cepheid distance to the maser-host galaxy NGC 4258: Studying systematics with the Large Binocular Telescope
• Models of rotating coronae
• The gravitational-wave signal generated by a galactic population of double neutron-star binaries
• Prompt emission of GRB 121217A from gamma-rays to the NIR
• Cepheids in M31 - The PAndromeda Cepheid sample
• Consistent radial velocities of classical Cepheids from the cross-correlation technique
• New Evidence Supporting Membership for TW Nor in Lynga 6 and the Centaurus Spiral Arm
• Panchromatic Hubble Andromeda Treasury XIII: The Cepheid period-luminosity relation in M31
• Radiative transfer effects in primordial hydrogen recombination
• New Evidence Supporting Cluster Membership for the Keystone Calibrator Delta Cephei
• Surface Brightness Fluctuations as Primary and Secondary Distance Indicators
• Observational studies of Cepheid amplitudes. II Metallicity dependence of pulsation amplitudes
• The Mid-Infrared Period-Luminosity Relations for the Small Magellanic Cloud Cepheids Derived from Spitzer Archival Data
• A 3% Determination of $H_0$ at Intermediate Redshifts
• The Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances to Type Ia Supernova Host Galaxies. II. M66 and M96 in the Leo I Group
• The long-period Galactic Cepheid RS Puppis - III. A geometric distance from HST polarimetric imaging of its light echoes
• The Second Nucleus of NGC 7727: Direct Evidence for the Formation and Evolution of an Ultracompact Dwarf Galaxy
• The Baade-Wesselink p-factor applicable to LMC Cepheids
• Doubly imaged quasar SDSS J1515+1511: time delay and lensing galaxies
• Giant disk galaxies : Where environment trumps mass in galaxy evolution
• The quest for the size of the universe in early relativistic cosmology (1917-1930)
• Unstable standard candles. Periodic light curve modulation in fundamental mode classical Cepheids
• A Study on the Universality and Linearity of the Leavitt Law in the LMC and SMC Galaxies
• Period-Luminosity Relations for Cepheid Variables: From Mid-Infrared to Multi-Phase
• Tight $H_0$ constraint from galaxy redshfit surveys: combining baryon acoustic osillation measurements and Alcock-Paczynski test
• Discovery of the Host Cluster for the Fundamental Cepheid Calibrator Zeta Gem
• Blending of Cepheids in M33
• Intermediate-age Globular Clusters in Four Galaxy Merger Remnants
• Type Ia supernovae data with scalar-tensor gravity
• The strange evolution of the Large Magellanic Cloud Cepheid OGLE-LMC-CEP1812
• Anchors for the Cosmic Distance Scale: the Cepheid QZ Normae in the Open Cluster NGC 6067
• The Age-Redshift Relation For Luminous Red Galaxies Obtained From the Full Spectrum Fitting and Its Cosmological Implications
• Constraining H0 in General Dark Energy Models from Sunyaev-Zeldovich/X-ray Technique and Complementary Probes
• A Preliminary Calibration of the JAGB Method Using Gaia EDR3
• Extended envelopes around Galactic Cepheids. V. Multi-wavelength and time-dependent analysis of IR excess
• A Cepheid-Based Distance to the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 6814
• Anchoring the Distance Scale via X-ray/IR Data for Cepheid Clusters: SU Cas
• Cosmological constraints from low-redshift data
• Problems and possibilities in fine-tuning of the Cepheid P-L relationship
• Hubble tensions: a historical statistical analysis
• Constraining the emergent dark energy models with observational data at intermediate redshift
• Evolution of shifted cosmological parameter and shifted dust matter in a two-phase tachyonic field universe
• Comparing the luminosity distance for gravitational waves and electromagnetic signals in a simple model of quadratic gravity
• Theoretical Cepheid Period-Luminosity And Period-Color Relations In Spitzer IRAC Bands
• Calibration of AGN Reverberation Distance Measurements
• Building the cosmic distance scale: from Hipparcos to Gaia
• Impact of distance determinations on Galactic structure. II. Old tracers
• Measuring Space-Time Geometry over the Ages
• The Hubble tension in the non-flat Super-$\Lambda \mathrm{CDM}$ model
• The Extragalactic Distance Scale without Cepheids IV
• New calibrated models for the TRGB luminosity and a thorough analysis of theoretical uncertainties
• Young and Intermediate-age Distance Indicators
• Cluster membership for the long period Cepheid calibrator SV Vul
• Strongly Lensed Jets, Time Delays, and the Value of H0
• Calibration of the Tully-Fisher relation in the WISE W1 ($3.4\mu \mathrm{m}$) and W2 ($4.6\mu \mathrm{m}$) Bands
• Distortion of Infall Regions in Redshift Space-I
• Gravitational wave astrophysics, data analysis and multimessenger astronomy
• Hubble Constant, Lensing, and Time Delay in Relativistic MOND
• Model-independent measurement of the absolute magnitude of Type Ia Supernovae with gravitational-wave sources
• Fundamental Physics and Cosmology with TianQin
• The Araucaria Project : the Baade-Wesselink projection factor of pulsating stars
• Testing Distance Estimators with the Fundamental Manifold
• Measuring gravitational lens time delays using low-resolution radio monitoring observations
• New classical Cepheids in the inner part of the northern Galactic disk and their kinematics
• Discovery of blue companions to two southern Cepheids: WW Car and FN Vel
• Clustering of Local Group distances: publication bias or correlated measurements? VI. Extending to Virgo cluster distances
• On Dark Gravitational Wave Standard Sirens as Cosmological Inference and Forecasting the Constraint on Hubble Constant using Binary Black Holes Detected by Deci-hertz Observatory
• Calibrating the standard candles with strong lensing
• An Informational Approach to Cosmological Parameter Estimation
• Advancing the Physics of Cosmic Distances: Conference Summary
• Model-independent search for anisotropies in stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds and application to LIGO-Virgo's first three observing Runs
• Stellar photometry with Multi Conjugate Adaptive Optics
• A Cluster of Class I/f/II YSOs Discovered Near the Cepheid SU Cas
• M31 PAndromeda Cepheid sample observed in four HST bands
• Towards Machine-assisted Meta-Studies: The Hubble Constant
• The Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program: Calibration of the Near-Infrared RR Lyrae Period-Luminosity Relation With HST
• Convective shells in the interior of Cepheid variable stars: overshooting models based on hydrodynamic simulations
• Gravitational Wave luminosity distance in viscous cosmological models
• Cosmology and the Hubble Constant: On the Megamaser Cosmology Project (MCP)
• The influence of weak lensing on measurements of the Hubble constant with quad-image gravitational lenses
• The Low Redshift survey at Calar Alto (LoRCA)
• Dispersion in the Hubble-Lemaître constant measurements from gravitational clustering
• Effect of Peak Absolute Magnitude of Type Ia Supernovae and Sound Horizon Values on Hubble Tension using DESI results
• Period-Luminosity Relations for Small Magellanic Cloud Cepheid Based on AKARI Archival Data
• Distance Measurements and Stellar Population Properties via Surface Brightness Fluctuations
• The Chicago Carnegie Hubble Program: Improving the Calibration of SNe Ia with JWST Measurements of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch
• Can the quasi-molecular mechanism of recombination decrease the Hubble tension?
• Predicting extragalactic distance errors using Bayesian inference in multi-measurement catalogs
• The influential effect of blending, bump, changing period and eclipsing Cepheids on the Leavitt law
• Estimating Cosmological Parameters and Reconstructing Hubble Constant with Artificial Neural Networks: A Test with covariance matrix and mock H(z)
• Asteroseismology, standard candles and the Hubble Constant: what is the role of asteroseismology in the era of precision cosmology?
• Surface brightness-color relations for red giant branch stars using asteroseismic radii and Gaia distances (the ARD method)
• Non-Hermitian Gravitational Wave Scattering
• Systematic Light Propagation Bias from the Heliosphere and Its Impact on the Hubble Tension
• Application of the space-based optical interferometer towards measuring cosmological distances of quasars
• Extragalactic Supergiants
• Systematic and Statistical Uncertainties in Cepheid PL Relations: Incorporating a Cross-Filter Random-Phase Mitigation Approach