Bayesian framework to infer the Hubble constant from the cross-correlation of individual gravitational wave events with galaxies

Abstract

Gravitational waves (GWs) from the inspiral of binary compact objects offer a one-step measurement of the luminosity distance to the event, which is essential for the measurement of the Hubble constant, $H_0$, which characterizes the expansion rate of the Universe. However, unlike binary neutron stars, the inspiral of binary black holes is not expected to be accompanied by electromagnetic radiation and a subsequent determination of its redshift. Consequently, independent redshift measurements of such GW events are necessary to measure $H_0$. In this study, we present a novel Bayesian approach to infer $H_0$ by measuring the overdensity of galaxies around individual binary black hole merger events in configuration space. We model the measured overdensity using the $3$D cross-correlation between galaxies and GW events, explicitly accounting for the GW event localization uncertainty. We demonstrate the efficacy of our method with $250$ simulated GW events distributed within $1$ Gpc in colored Gaussian noise of Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo detectors operating at O4 sensitivity. We show that such measurements can constrain the Hubble constant with a precision of $\lesssim 8\%$ ($90\%$ highest density interval). We highlight the potential improvements that need to be accounted for in further studies before the method can be applied to real data.

15 pages, 6 figures, 1 table; Published in PRD

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Cited by in corpus (8)

• A robust cosmic standard ruler from the cross-correlations of galaxies and dark sirens
• Cosmic Cartography II: completing galaxy catalogs for gravitational-wave cosmology
• A Hubble constant estimation with dark standard sirens and galaxy cluster catalogues
• Inferring astrophysics and cosmology with individual compact binary coalescences and their gravitational-wave stochastic background
• Joint Inference of Population, Cosmology, and Neutron Star Equation of State from Gravitational Waves of Dark Binary Neutron Stars
• Synergy between CSST and third-generation gravitational-wave detectors: Inferring cosmological parameters using cross-correlation of dark sirens and galaxies
• Golden and Silver Dark Sirens for precise H0 measurement with HETDEX
• Identifying Host Galaxies of Binary Black Hole Mergers with Next-Generation Gravitational Wave Detector Networks