Measuring the Hubble Constant with a sample of kilonovae

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates how kilonova light curves, combined with gravitational-wave data, can be used to measure the Hubble constant with improved precision, offering an independent approach to cosmological measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a method to estimate H0 using kilonova light curves from short gamma-ray bursts, expanding the toolkit beyond gravitational-wave data alone.

Findings

H0 measured as 73.8^{+6.3}_{-5.8} km/s/Mpc with one model.

H0 measured as 71.2^{+3.2}_{-3.1} km/s/Mpc with another model.

Measurement is 2-3 times more precise than previous GW-only methods.

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 ($H_0$). 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 $H_0$ contraints. Here, we show measurement of $H_0$ 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 $H_0 = 73.8^{+6.3}_{-5.8}$\,$\mathrm{km}$ $\mathrm{s}^{-1}$ $\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$ and $H_0 = 71.2^{+3.2}_{-3.1}$\,$\mathrm{km}$ $\mathrm{s}^{-1}$ $\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$ 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.