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A gravitational-wave standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant
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The LIGO Scientific Collaboration and The Virgo Collaboration, The 1M2H Collaboration, The Dark Energy Camera GW-EM Collaboration and the DES Collaboration, The DLT40 Collaboration, The Las Cumbres Observatory Collaboration, The VINROUGE Collaboration, The MASTER Collaboration (Including: Levan, Andrew J., Lyman, J. D., Steeghs, D., Ulaczyk, Krzysztof and Wiersema, Klaas). (2017) A gravitational-wave standard siren measurement of the Hubble constant. Nature, 551 . pp. 85-88. doi:10.1038/nature24471 ISSN 0028-0836.
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WRAP-gravitational-wave-standard-siren-measurement-Hubble-constant-Levan-2017.pdf - Accepted Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (866Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature24471
Abstract
On 17 August 2017, the Advanced LIGO1 and Virgo2 detectors observed the gravitational-wave event GW170817—a strong signal from the merger of a binary neutron-star system3. Less than two seconds after the merger, a γ-ray burst (GRB 170817A) was detected within a region of the sky consistent with the LIGO–Virgo-derived location of the gravitational-wave source4, 5, 6. This sky region was subsequently observed by optical astronomy facilities7, resulting in the identification8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 of an optical transient signal within about ten arcseconds of the galaxy NGC 4993. This detection of GW170817 in both gravitational waves and electromagnetic waves represents the first ‘multi-messenger’ astronomical observation. Such observations enable GW170817 to be used as a ‘standard siren’14, 15, 16, 17, 18 (meaning that the absolute distance to the source can be determined directly from the gravitational-wave measurements) to measure the Hubble constant. This quantity represents the local expansion rate of the Universe, sets the overall scale of the Universe and is of fundamental importance to cosmology. Here we report a measurement of the Hubble constant that combines the distance to the source inferred purely from the gravitational-wave signal with the recession velocity inferred from measurements of the redshift using the electromagnetic data. In contrast to previous measurements, ours does not require the use of a cosmic ‘distance ladder’19: the gravitational-wave analysis can be used to estimate the luminosity distance out to cosmological scales directly, without the use of intermediate astronomical distance measurements. We determine the Hubble constant to be about 70 kilometres per second per megaparsec. This value is consistent with existing measurements20, 21, while being completely independent of them. Additional standard siren measurements from future gravitational-wave sources will enable the Hubble constant to be constrained to high precision.
Item Type: | Journal Article | |||||||||
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Subjects: | Q Science > QB Astronomy | |||||||||
Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Physics | |||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Gravitational waves, Expanding universe | |||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | Nature | |||||||||
Publisher: | Nature Publishing | |||||||||
ISSN: | 0028-0836 | |||||||||
Official Date: | 2 November 2017 | |||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 551 | |||||||||
Page Range: | pp. 85-88 | |||||||||
DOI: | 10.1038/nature24471 | |||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | |||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | |||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access | |||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 5 December 2017 | |||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 16 April 2018 | |||||||||
RIOXX Funder/Project Grant: |
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