Constraining the Hubble constant with scattering in host galaxies of fast radio bursts

Abstract

Measuring the Hubble constant (H${}_0$) is one of the most important missions in astronomy. Nevertheless, recent studies exhibit differences between the employed methods. Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are coherent radio transients with large dispersion measures (DM) with a duration of milliseconds. DM${}_{\mathrm{IGM}}$, DM in the intergalactic medium (IGM), could open a new avenue for probing H${}_0$. However, it has been challenging to separate DM contributions from different components (i.e., the IGM and the host galaxy plasma), and this hampers the accurate measurements of DM${}_{\mathrm{IGM}}$ and hence H${}_0$. We adopted a method to overcome this problem by using the temporal scattering of the FRB pulses due to the propagation effect through the host galaxy plasma (scattering time). The scattering-inferred DM in a host galaxy improves the estimate of DM${}_{\mathrm{IGM}}$, which in turn leads to a better constraint on H${}_0$. In previous studies, a certain value or distribution has conventionally been assumed of the dispersion measure in host galaxies (DM${}_{\mathrm{h}}$). We compared this method with ours by generating 100 mock FRBs, and we found that our method reduces the systematic (statistical) error of H${}_0$ by 9.1% (1%) compared to the previous method. We applied our method to 30 localized FRB sources with both scattering and spectroscopic redshift measurements to constrain H${}_0$. Our result is H${}_0$=74${}_{-7.2}^{+7.5}$ km s${}^{-1}$ Mpc${}^{-1}$, where the central value prefers the value obtained from local measurements over the cosmic microwave background. We also measured DM${}_{\mathrm{h}}$ with a median value of $103_{-48}^{+68}$ pc cm${}^{-3}$. The reduction in systematic error is comparable to the Hubble tension ($\sim 10$%). Combined with the fact that more localized FRBs will become available, our result indicates that our method can be used to address the Hubble tension using future FRB samples.

13 pages, 13 figures, Accepted for publication in A&A, for the oral presentation in the conference (ASROC 2023), see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1umtxDVN-Ro&t=44s

References in corpus (38)

• 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
• In the Realm of the Hubble tension $-$ a Review of Solutions
• A bright millisecond radio burst of extragalactic origin
• Cosmic Distances Calibrated to 1% Precision with Gaia EDR3 Parallaxes and Hubble Space Telescope Photometry of 75 Milky Way Cepheids Confirm Tension with LambdaCDM
• The Host Galaxy and Redshift of the Repeating Fast Radio Burst FRB 121102
• A census of baryons in the Universe from localized fast radio bursts
• Fast Radio Bursts
• Fast Radio Burst Discovered in the Arecibo Pulsar ALFA Survey
• The First CHIME/FRB Fast Radio Burst Catalog
• A single fast radio burst localized to a massive galaxy at cosmological distance
• A fast radio burst localised to a massive galaxy
• Characterizing the FRB host galaxy population and its connection to transients in the local and extragalactic Universe
• High time resolution and polarisation properties of ASKAP-localised fast radio bursts
• A measurement of Hubble's Constant using Fast Radio Bursts
• A Distant Fast Radio Burst Associated to its Host Galaxy with the Very Large Array
• Detection of Repeating FRB 180916.J0158+65 Down to Frequencies of 300 MHz
• Deep Synoptic Array science I: discovery of the host galaxy of FRB 20220912A
• The Hubble Tension Revisited: Additional Local Distance Ladder Uncertainties
• A luminous fast radio burst that probes the Universe at redshift 1
• A non-repeating fast radio burst in a dwarf host galaxy
• Energy functions of fast radio bursts derived from the first CHIME/FRB catalogue
• CHIME/FRB Catalog 1 results: statistical cross-correlations with large-scale structure
• Cosmology-independent estimate of the fraction of baryon mass in the IGM from fast radio burst observations
• Redshift Estimation and Constraints on Intergalactic and Interstellar Media from Dispersion and Scattering of Fast Radio Bursts
• BURSTT: Bustling Universe Radio Survey Telescope in Taiwan
• Limits on precursor and afterglow radio emission from a fast radio burst in a star-forming galaxy
• A Fast Radio Burst with frequency-dependent polarization detected during Breakthrough Listen observations
• The discovery and scientific potential of fast radio bursts
• The Dispersion of Fast Radio Bursts from a Structured Intergalactic Medium at Redshifts z < 1.5
• A population analysis of pulse broadening in ASKAP Fast Radio Bursts
• A sub-arcsec localised fast radio burst with a significant host galaxy dispersion measure contribution
• The FRB20190520B Sightline Intersects Foreground Galaxy Clusters
• Deep Synoptic Array science: Two fast radio burst sources in massive galaxy clusters
• The discovery and significance of fast radio bursts
• The Astrophysical Consequences of Intervening Galaxy Gas on Fast Radio Bursts
• A clock stabilization system for CHIME/FRB Outriggers
• Birth and Evolution of Fast Radio Bursts: Strong Population-Based Evidence for a Neutron-Star Origin
• Future Constraints on Dark Matter with Gravitationally Lensed Fast Radio Bursts Detected by BURSTT

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Exploring the Key Features of Repeating Fast Radio Bursts with Machine Learning
• Combining strongly lensed and unlensed fast radio bursts: To be a more precise late-universe probe