Measuring the Hubble constant with a sample of kilonovae.
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 32807780.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-17998-5 and PMC identifier 7431580.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Kilonovae produced by the coalescence of compact binaries with at least one neutron star are promising standard sirens for an independent measurement of the Hubble constant (H<sub>0</sub>). Through their detection via follow-up of gravitational-wave (GW), short gamma-ray bursts (sGRBs) or optical surveys, a large sample of kilonovae (even without GW data) can be used for H<sub>0</sub> contraints. Here, we show measurement of H<sub>0</sub> using light curves associated with four sGRBs, assuming these are attributable to kilonovae, combined with GW170817. Including a systematic uncertainty on the models that is as large as the statistical ones, we find [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] for two different kilonova models that are consistent with the local and inverse-distance ladder measurements. For a given model, this measurement is about a factor of 2-3 more precise than the standard-siren measurement for GW170817 using only GWs.