A Maximum Likelihood Calibration of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch Luminosity from High Latitude Field Giants using Gaia Early Data Release 3 Parallaxes

Abstract

The calibration of the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) in the $I$-band has a direct role in determinations of the Hubble constant, a subject of recent interest due to the discrepancy between direct and indirect estimates of its value. We present a maximum likelihood (ML) method designed to obtain an independent calibration of the brightness of TRGB using $Gaia$ parallaxes from the Early Data Release 3 (EDR3) of Milky Way field Giants at high Galactic latitude. We adopt simple parameterizations for the Milky Way stellar luminosity function and density law and and optimize the likelihood of the observed sample as a function of those parameters. Using parameters to partially constrain the luminosity function from other galaxies similar to the Milky Way for which high quality TRGB data are available, we find values of the TRGB magnitude of $M_I^{TRGB}=-3.91\pm 0.05$ (stat) $\pm 0.09$ (sys) mag, where the systematic uncertainty covers the range of shape parameters found in our Milky Way sample and in reference galaxies. While APASS Data Release 9 all-sky photometry is insufficient to provide a reliable constraint on the shape of the Milky Way luminosity function, we estimate that the photometry from $Gaia$ Data Release 3 (mid-2022) will allow better constraints on the shape, and lower statistical uncertainties on the tip by a factor of 3. With expected releases of improved parallax measurements from $Gaia$, the method of calibrating the TRGB luminosity from field Giants is expected to reach $\sim$ 0.01 mag uncertainty, which is an important step toward a precise TRGB-based determination of the Hubble constant.

17 pages, 6 figures, 4 tables, Accepted by ApJ, This version contains changes from fixing a filter transformation

References in corpus (29)

• A Comprehensive Measurement of the Local Value of the Hubble Constant with 1 km/s/Mpc Uncertainty from the Hubble Space Telescope and the SH0ES Team
• Gaia Early Data Release 3: Parallax bias versus magnitude, colour, and position
• Cosmic Distances Calibrated to 1% Precision with Gaia EDR3 Parallaxes and Hubble Space Telescope Photometry of 75 Milky Way Cepheids Confirm Tension with LambdaCDM
• 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
• Measurements of the Hubble Constant: Tensions in Perspective
• Gaia EDR3 view on Galactic globular clusters
• Gaia Early Data Release 3 -- Catalogue validation
• Calibration of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch (TRGB)
• Parallax Systematics and Photocenter Motions of Benchmark Eclipsing Binaries in Gaia EDR3
• A distance determination to the Small Magellanic Cloud with an accuracy of better than 2 percent based on late-type eclipsing binary stars
• Axion and neutrino bounds improved with new calibrations of the tip of the red-giant branch using geometric distance determinations
• Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances. I. Optimization of a Maximum Likelihood Algorithm
• New Optical Reddening Maps of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds
• The Hubble Constant from Infrared Surface Brightness Fluctuation Distances
• OGLE-ing the Magellanic System: Optical Reddening Maps of the Large and Small Magellanic Cloud from Red Clump Stars
• The Parallax of Omega Centauri Measured from Gaia EDR3 and a Direct, Geometric Calibration of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch and the Hubble Constant
• Comparing Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distance Scales: An Independent Reduction of the Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program and the Value of the Hubble Constant
• The Extragalactic Distance Database: The Color-Magnitude Diagrams and Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances Catalog
• The Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances to Type Ia Supernova Host Galaxies. IV. Color Dependence and Zero-Point Calibration
• Validation of the accuracy and precision of Gaia EDR3 parallaxes with globular clusters
• The Parallax Zero-Point of Gaia Early Data Release 3 from LAMOST Primary Red Clump Stars
• Cosmological Results from the RAISIN Survey: Using Type Ia Supernovae in the Near Infrared as a Novel Path to Measure the Dark Energy Equation of State
• Empirical calibration of the reddening maps in the Magellanic Clouds
• The Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program. IX. Calibration of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch Method in the Mega-Maser Host Galaxy, NGC4258 (M106)
• RR Lyrae variables in Messier 53: Near-infrared Period--Luminosity relations and the calibration using Gaia Early Data Release 3
• The Cluster Ages Experiment (CASE). VIII. Age and Distance of the Globular Cluster 47 Tuc from the Analysis of Two Detached Eclipsing Binaries
• Eclipsing Binary Populations across the Northern Galactic Plane from the KISOGP survey
• Galaxy Properties at the Faint End of the HI Mass Function

Cited by in corpus (11)

• The CosmoVerse White Paper: Addressing observational tensions in cosmology with systematics and fundamental physics
• A BayeSN Distance Ladder: $H_0$ from a consistent modelling of Type Ia supernovae from the optical to the near infrared
• Cepheid metallicity in the Leavitt law (C-MetaLL) survey -- III. Simultaneous derivation of the Gaia parallax offset and Period-Luminosity-Metallicity coefficients
• Comparative Analysis of TRGBs (CATs) from Unsupervised, Multi-Halo-Field Measurements: Contrast is Key
• Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances with JWST. II. I-band Measurements in a Sample of Hosts of 10 SN Ia Match HST Cepheids
• A Gaia Data Release 3 View on the Tip of the Red Giant Branch Luminosity
• Investigating Gaia EDR3 parallax systematics using asteroseismology of Cool Giant Stars observed by Kepler, K2, and TESS II. Deciphering Gaia parallax systematics using red clump stars
• Standardized Luminosity of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch utilizing Multiple Fields in NGC 4258 and the CATs Algorithm
• A Geometric Calibration of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch in the Milky Way using Gaia DR3
• The red giant branch tip in the SDSS, PS1, JWST, NGRST and Euclid photometric systems. Calibration in optical passbands using Gaia DR3 synthetic photometry
• The Chicago Carnegie Hubble Program: Improving the Calibration of SNe Ia with JWST Measurements of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch