Impact of calibration uncertainties on Hubble constant measurements from gravitational-wave sources

Abstract

Gravitational-wave (GW) detections of electromagnetically bright compact binary coalescences can provide an independent measurement of the Hubble constant $H_0$. In order to obtain a measurement that could help arbitrate the existing tension on $H_0$, one needs to fully understand any source of systematic biases for this approach. In this study, we aim to understand the impact of instrumental calibration errors (CEs) on the measurements of the luminosity distance, $D_L$, and the inferred $H_0$ value. We simulate binary neutron star mergers (BNSs), as detected by a network of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo interferometers at their design sensitivity. We artificially add CEs equal to exceptionally large values experienced in LIGO-Virgo's third observing run (O3). We find that for individual BNSs at a network signal-to-noise ratio of 50, the systematic errors on $D_L$ - and hence $H_0$ - are still smaller than the statistical uncertainties. The biases become more significant when we combine multiple events to obtain a joint posterior on $H_0$. In the rather unrealistic case that the data around each detection is affected by the same CEs corresponding to the worst offender of O3, the true $H_0$ value would be excluded from the 90% credible interval after we combine $\sim$40 sources. If instead, 10% of the sources suffer from severe CEs, the true value of $H_0$ is included in the 90% credible interval even after 100 sources.

arXiv comment12 pages, 11 figures, 2 tables

References in corpus (63)

• SciPy 1.0--Fundamental Algorithms for Scientific Computing in Python
• Array Programming with NumPy
• GW170817: Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Neutron Star Inspiral
• Advanced Virgo: a 2nd generation interferometric gravitational wave detector
• Multi-messenger Observations of a Binary Neutron Star Merger
• Gravitational Waves and Gamma-rays from a Binary Neutron Star Merger: GW170817 and GRB 170817A
• Advanced LIGO
• The Complete Light-curve Sample of Spectroscopically Confirmed Type Ia Supernovae from Pan-STARRS1 and Cosmological Constraints from The Combined Pantheon Sample
• GWTC-2: Compact Binary Coalescences Observed by LIGO and Virgo During the First Half of the Third Observing Run
• A 2.4% Determination of the Local Value of the Hubble Constant
• Properties of the binary neutron star merger GW170817
• A gravitational-wave standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant
• H0LiCOW XIII. A 2.4% measurement of $H_0$ from lensed quasars: $5.3\sigma$ tension between early and late-Universe probes
• Frequency-domain gravitational waves from non-precessing black-hole binaries. II. A phenomenological model for the advanced detector era
• Properties of the Binary Black Hole Merger GW150914
• Robust parameter estimation for compact binaries with ground-based gravitational-wave observations using the LALInference software library
• The Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program. VIII. An Independent Determination of the Hubble Constant Based on the Tip of the Red Giant Branch
• Frequency-domain gravitational waves from non-precessing black-hole binaries. I. New numerical waveforms and anatomy of the signal
• Using gravitational-wave standard sirens
• Cosmic Distances Calibrated to 1% Precision with Gaia EDR3 Parallaxes and Hubble Space Telescope Photometry of 75 Milky Way Cepheids Confirm Tension with LambdaCDM
• A simple model of complete precessing black-hole-binary gravitational waveforms
• Use and Abuse of the Fisher Information Matrix in the Assessment of Gravitational-Wave Parameter-Estimation Prospects
• Milky Way Cepheid Standards for Measuring Cosmic Distances and Application to Gaia DR2: Implications for the Hubble Constant
• A 2 per cent Hubble constant measurement from standard sirens within 5 years
• Exploring short gamma-ray bursts as gravitational-wave standard sirens
• Sensitivity and Performance of the Advanced LIGO Detectors in the Third Observing Run
• H0LiCOW - IX. Cosmographic analysis of the doubly imaged quasar SDSS 1206+4332 and a new measurement of the Hubble constant
• Short GRB and binary black hole standard sirens as a probe of dark energy
• First measurement of the Hubble constant from a dark standard siren using the Dark Energy Survey galaxies and the LIGO/Virgo binary-black-hole merger GW170814
• Inference of the cosmological parameters from gravitational waves: application to second generation interferometers
• Cosmological parameters from the comparison of peculiar velocities with predictions from the 2M++ density field
• Dark Energy Survey Year 1 Results: A Precise H0 Measurement from DES Y1, BAO, and D/H Data
• Measuring a cosmological distance-redshift relationship using only gravitational wave observations of binary neutron star coalescences
• A gravitational-wave measurement of the Hubble constant following the second observing run of Advanced LIGO and Virgo
• A standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant from GW170817 without the electromagnetic counterpart
• A Future Percent-Level Measurement of the Hubble Expansion at Redshift 0.8 With Advanced LIGO
• Cosmological Inference using Gravitational Wave Standard Sirens: A Mock Data Challenge
• Fast and Accurate Inference on Gravitational Waves from Precessing Compact Binaries
• Accurate precision Cosmology with redshift unknown gravitational wave sources
• Parameter estimation for binary neutron-star coalescences with realistic noise during the Advanced LIGO era
• Characterization of systematic error in Advanced LIGO calibration
• Cosmology in the dark: On the importance of source population models for gravitational-wave cosmology
• Calibration of the Advanced LIGO detectors for the discovery of the binary black-hole merger GW150914
• Spectral sirens: cosmology from the full mass distribution of compact binaries
• Velocity correction for Hubble constant measurements from standard sirens
• Reconstructing the calibrated strain signal in the Advanced LIGO detectors
• Cosmological inference using only gravitational wave observations of binary neutron stars
• Effect of calibration errors on Bayesian parameter estimation for gravitational wave signals from inspiral binary systems in the advanced detectors era
• Standard Siren Speeds: Improving velocities in gravitational-wave measurements of $H_0$
• Waveform systematics for binary neutron star gravitational wave signals: effects of the point-particle baseline and tidal descriptions
• Statistical and systematic errors for gravitational-wave inspiral signals: A principal component analysis
• Systematic uncertainty of standard sirens from the viewing angle of binary neutron star inspirals
• On combining information from multiple gravitational wave sources
• Gravitational-wave astronomy with a physical calibration model
• physiCal: A physical approach to the marginalization of LIGO calibration uncertainties
• Viewing angle of binary neutron star mergers
• Prospects for Measuring the Hubble Constant with Neutron-Star-Black-Hole Mergers
• Determination of the Local Hubble Constant from Virgo Infall Using TRGB Distances
• Improving LIGO calibration accuracy by tracking and compensating for slow temporal variations
• Fiducial displacements with improved accuracy for the global network of gravitational wave detectors
• Calibration Uncertainty's Impact on Gravitational-Wave Observations
• Calibrating gravitational-wave detectors with GW170817
• Systematic calibration error requirements for gravitational-wave detectors via the Cramér-Rao bound

Cited by in corpus (4)

• The Science of the Einstein Telescope
• A complete measurement of a black-hole recoil through higher-order gravitational-wave modes
• Listening Across the Cosmic Time: Standard Sirens from Ground- and Space-Based Missions in the Next Decade
• Impact of Detector Calibration Accuracy on Black Hole Spectroscopy