Comparing Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distance Scales: An Independent Reduction of the Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program and the Value of the Hubble Constant

TL;DR

This paper presents an independent analysis of the Tip of the Red Giant Branch (TRGB) distance scale, compares it with the Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program, and derives a value for the Hubble Constant using new HST data and calibration methods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel modeling approach for TRGB luminosity functions and provides an independent calibration of the TRGB distance scale for Hubble Constant measurement.

Findings

Excellent agreement with previous distances for nearby hosts

Inability to measure TRGB for distant hosts with archival data

Derived Hubble Constant of 71.5 ± 1.8 km/s/Mpc

Abstract

The tip of the red giant branch has been used to measure distances to 500 nearby galaxies with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) which are available in the Color-Magnitude Diagrams and Tip of the Red Giant Branch (CMDs/TRGB) catalog on the Extragalactic Distance Database (EDD). Our established methods are employed to perform an independent reduction of the targets presented by the Carnegie-Chicago Hubble Program (CCHP) in the series of papers culminating in Freedman (2021). Our distinct methodology involves modeling the observed luminosity function of red giant branch and asymptotic giant branch stars, which differs from the edge-detection algorithms employed by the CCHP. We find excellent agreement between distances for 11 hosts with new imaging, all at D < 20 Mpc. However, we are unable to measure the TRGB for 4 of the 5 hosts that use archival data designed to measure distances with Cepheids, all at D > 23 Mpc. With two new HST observations taken in the halo of the megamaser host NGC 4258, the first with the same ACS F606W and F814W filters and the post-servicing electronics used for SN Ia hosts, we then calibrate our TRGB distance scale to the geometric megamaser distance. Using our TRGB distances, we find a value of the Hubble Constant of $H_{0}$ = 71.5 $\pm$ 1.8 km/s/Mpc when using either the Pantheon or Carnegie Supernova Project (CSP) samples of supernovae. In the future, the James Webb Space Telescope will extend measurements of the TRGB to additional hosts of SN Ia and surface brightness fluctuation measurements for separate paths to $H_{0}$.