Local gravitational physics of the Hubble expansion

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the Hubble expansion influences local measurements of space, time, and light in the solar system, revealing a potential method to measure the Hubble constant through radio wave experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a local inertial coordinate system in an expanding universe and shows how Hubble expansion causes measurable effects on light propagation in the solar system.

Findings

Light exhibits a systematic blue shift proportional to Hubble constant

Standard models assume uniform light motion, conflicting with cosmological effects

Potential to measure Hubble constant via solar system radio experiments

Abstract

We study physical consequences of the Hubble expansion of FLRW manifold on measurement of space, time and light propagation in the local inertial frame. We analyse the solar system radar ranging and Doppler tracking experiments, and time synchronization. FLRW manifold is covered by global coordinates (t,y^i), where t is the cosmic time coinciding with the proper time of the Hubble observers. We introduce local inertial coordinates x^a=(x^0,x^i) in the vicinity of a world line of a Hubble observer with the help of a special conformal transformation. The local inertial metric is Minkowski flat and is materialized by the congruence of time-like geodesics of static observers being at rest with respect to the local spatial coordinates x^i. We consider geodesic motion of test particles and notice that the local coordinate time x^0=x^0(t) taken as a parameter along the world line of particle, is a function of the Hubble's observer time t. This function changes smoothly from x^0=t for a particle at rest (observer's clock), to x^0=t+1/2 Ht^2 for photons, where H is the Hubble constant. Thus, motion of a test particle is non-uniform when its world line is parametrized by time t. NASA JPL Orbit Determination Program presumes that motion of light (after the Shapiro delay is excluded) is uniform with respect to the time t but it does not comply with the non-uniform motion of light on cosmological manifold. For this reason, the motion of light in the solar system analysed with the Orbit Determination Program appears as having a systematic blue shift of frequency, of radio waves circulating in the Earth-spacecraft radio link. The magnitude of the anomalous blue shift of frequency is proportional to the Hubble constant H that may open an access to the measurement of this fundamental cosmological parameter in the solar system radiowave experiments.