Potential biases and prospects for the Hubble constant estimation via electromagnetic and gravitational-wave joint analyses

Abstract

GW170817 is a binary neutron star merger that exhibited a gravitational wave (GW) and a gamma-ray burst, followed by an afterglow. In this work, we estimate the Hubble constant ($H_0$) using broad-band afterglow emission and relativistic jet motion from the Very Long Baseline Interferometry and Hubble Space Telescope images of GW170817. Compared to previous attempts, we combine these messengers with GW in a simultaneous Bayesian fit. We probe the $H_0$ measurement robustness depending on the data set used, the assumed jet model, the possible presence of a late time flux excess. Using the sole GW leads to a $20\%$ error ($77_{-10}^{+21}$ km/s/Mpc, medians, 16th-84th percentiles), because of the degeneracy between viewing angle (${\theta }_v$) and luminosity distance ($d_L$). The latter is reduced by the inclusion in the fit of the afterglow light curve, leading to $H_0=96_{-10}^{+13}$ km/s/Mpc, a large value, caused by the fit preference for high viewing angles due to the possible presence of a late-time excess in the afterglow flux. Accounting for the latter by including a constant flux component at late times brings $H_0=78.5_{-6.4}^{+7.9}$ km/s/Mpc. Adding the centroid motion in the analysis efficiently breaks the $d_L-{\theta }_v$ degeneracy and overcome the late-time deviations, giving $H_0=69.0_{-4.3}^{+4.4}$ km/s/Mpc (in agreement with Planck and SH0ES measurements) and ${\theta }_v=18.2_{-1.5}^{+1.2}$ deg. This is valid regardless of the jet structure assumption. Our simulations show that for next GW runs radio observations are expected to provide at most few other similar events.

arXiv comment14 pages, 10 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS

References in corpus (85)

• 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
• dynesty: A Dynamic Nested Sampling Package for Estimating Bayesian Posteriors and Evidences
• Large Magellanic Cloud Cepheid Standards Provide a 1% Foundation for the Determination of the Hubble Constant and Stronger Evidence for Physics Beyond LambdaCDM
• The Physics of Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Gravitational Waves from Mergin Compact Binaries: How Accurately Can One Extract the Binary's Parameters from the Inspiral Waveform?
• An Ordinary Short Gamma-Ray Burst with Extraordinary Implications: Fermi-GBM Detection of GRB 170817A
• Gamma-Ray Bursts as the Death Throes of Massive Binary Stars
• Properties of the binary neutron star merger GW170817
• A gravitational-wave standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant
• Tensions between the Early and the Late Universe
• H0LiCOW XIII. A 2.4% measurement of $H_0$ from lensed quasars: $5.3\sigma$ tension between early and late-Universe probes
• Bilby: A user-friendly Bayesian inference library for gravitational-wave astronomy
• Short-Duration Gamma-Ray Bursts
• INTEGRAL Detection of the First Prompt Gamma-Ray Signal Coincident with the Gravitational Wave Event GW170817
• The X-ray counterpart to the gravitational wave event GW 170817
• Short-Hard Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Using gravitational-wave standard sirens
• Observing binary inspiral in gravitational radiation: One interferometer
• A simple model of complete precessing black-hole-binary gravitational waveforms
• Detection, Measurement and Gravitational Radiation
• Superluminal motion of a relativistic jet in the neutron star merger GW170817
• Open data from the first and second observing runs of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo
• A Radio Counterpart to a Neutron Star Merger
• Gravitational-Radiation Damping of Compact Binary Systems to Second Post-Newtonian order
• How to Tell a Jet from a Balloon: A Proposed Test for Beaming in Gamma Ray Bursts
• Gravitational waves from inspiralling compact binaries: Parameter estimation using second-post-Newtonian waveforms
• Bayesian inference for compact binary coalescences with BILBY: Validation and application to the first LIGO--Virgo gravitational-wave transient catalogue
• Detection methods for stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds: a unified treatment
• A 2 per cent Hubble constant measurement from standard sirens within 5 years
• Exploring short gamma-ray bursts as gravitational-wave standard sirens
• The Electromagnetic Counterpart of the Binary Neutron Star Merger LIGO/VIRGO GW170817. V. Rising X-ray Emission from an Off-Axis Jet
• Compact radio emission indicates a structured jet was produced by a binary neutron star merger
• Late time afterglow observations reveal a collimated relativistic jet in the ejecta of the binary neutron star merger GW170817
• The Binary Neutron Star event LIGO/VIRGO GW170817 a hundred and sixty days after merger: synchrotron emission across the electromagnetic spectrum
• The outflow structure of GW170817 from late time broadband observations
• Improving the NRTidal model for binary neutron star systems
• Closed-form tidal approximants for binary neutron star gravitational waveforms constructed from high-resolution numerical relativity simulations
• Gamma-Ray Burst Afterglows In The Multi-Messenger Era: Numerical Models and Closure Relations
• A Deep Chandra X-ray Study of Neutron Star Coalescence GW170817
• Matter imprints in waveform models for neutron star binaries: tidal and self-spin effects
• Massively parallel Bayesian inference for transient gravitational-wave astronomy
• A Decline in the X-ray through Radio Emission from GW170817 Continues to Support an Off-Axis Structured Jet
• The evolution of the X-ray afterglow emission of GW 170817 / GRB 170817A in XMM-Newton observations
• The Distance to NGC 4993: The Host Galaxy of the Gravitational-wave Event GW170817
• A turnover in the radio light curve of GW170817
• The optical afterglow of GW170817 at one year post-merger
• The electromagnetic counterparts of compact binary mergers
• A long-lived neutron star merger remnant in GW170817: constraints and clues from X-ray observations
• Two years of non-thermal emission from the binary neutron star merger GW170817: rapid fading of the jet afterglow and first constraints on the kilonova fastest ejecta
• Afterglow Imaging and Polarization of Misaligned Structured GRB Jets and Cocoons: Breaking the Degeneracy in GRB 170817A
• A thousand days after the merger: continued X-ray emission from GW170817
• Data-driven expectations for electromagnetic counterpart searches based on LIGO/Virgo public alerts
• Improved constraints on H0 from a combined analysis of gravitational-wave and electromagnetic emission from GW170817
• Anticipated Performance of the Square Kilometre Array -- Phase 1 (SKA1)
• The Optical Afterglow of GW170817: An Off-axis Structured Jet and Deep Constraints on a Globular Cluster Origin
• Off-Axis Emission of Short GRB Jets from Double Neutron Star Mergers and GRB 170817A
• Evidence for X-ray Emission in Excess to the Jet Afterglow Decay 3.5 yrs After the Binary Neutron Star Merger GW 170817: A New Emission Component
• Constraining the Inclination of Binary Mergers from Gravitational-wave Observations
• Measuring the viewing angle of GW170817 with electromagnetic and gravitational waves
• Optical measurement of superluminal motion in the neutron-star merger GW170817
• The Impact of Peculiar Velocities on the Estimation of the Hubble Constant from Gravitational Wave Standard Sirens
• GW170817 Afterglow Reveals that Short Gamma-Ray Bursts are Neutron Star Mergers
• Systematic uncertainty of standard sirens from the viewing angle of binary neutron star inspirals
• Radio Imaging of GRB Jets in Nearby Supernovae
• A Bayesian approach to multi-messenger astronomy: Identification of gravitational-wave host galaxies
• Continued radio observations of GW170817 3.5 years post-merger
• Afterglow constraints on the viewing angle of binary neutron star mergers and determination of the Hubble constant
• Prospects for Measuring the Hubble Constant with Neutron-Star-Black-Hole Mergers
• Constraining short gamma-ray burst jet properties with gravitational waves and gamma rays
• Multi-messenger-Athena Synergy White Paper
• Multimessenger parameter estimation of GW170817: from jet structure to the Hubble constant
• Diverse Jet Structures Consistent with the Off-axis Afterglow of GRB 170817A
• The late afterglow of GW170817/GRB170817A: a large viewing angle and the shift of the Hubble constant to a value more consistent with the local measurements
• Constraining the Jet Launching Time of GRB 170817A by Utilizing the Baryon Loading
• Analytic Model for Off-Axis GRB Afterglow Images -- Geometry Measurement and Implications for Measuring $H_0$
• The potential role of binary neutron star merger afterglows in multimessenger cosmology
• Joint analysis of gravitational-wave and electromagnetic data of mergers: breaking an afterglow model degeneracy in GW170817 and in future events
• Revisiting the Parameter Space of Binary Neutron Star Merger Event GW170817
• Modelling of Long-Term Afterglow Counterparts to Gravitational Wave Events: The Full View of GRB 170817A
• Standard Siren Cosmology with Gravitational Waves from Binary Black Hole Mergers in Active Galaxy Nuclei
• A standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant using GW170817 and the latest observations of the electromagnetic counterpart afterglow

Cited by in corpus (5)

• The CosmoVerse White Paper: Addressing observational tensions in cosmology with systematics and fundamental physics
• Science objectives of the Einstein Probe mission
• jetsimpy: A Highly Efficient Hydrodynamic Code for Gamma-ray Burst Afterglow
• Be careful in multi-messenger inference of the Hubble constant: A path forward for robust inference
• Kilonova and progenitor properties of merger-driven gamma-ray bursts