Cosmological model-independent measurement of cosmic curvature using distance sum rule with the help of gravitational waves

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel, model-independent method to measure cosmic curvature using gravitational waves for distance calibration in strong gravitational lensing, demonstrating its feasibility and potential for high precision with future surveys.

Contribution

It introduces using gravitational waves to calibrate distances in the sum rule method, enabling independent and precise measurement of cosmic curvature.

Findings

Current SGL data yields ΔΩ_k ≈ 0.17, more precise than SN calibration.

Future surveys could achieve ΔΩ_k ≈ 10^{-2} with about 10^4 SGL systems.

Method's accuracy depends on lens models, but future data will improve constraints.

Abstract

Although the cosmic curvature has been tightly constrained in the standard cosmological model using observations of cosmic microwave background anisotropies, it is still of great importance to independently measure this key parameter using only late-universe observations in a cosmological model-independent way. The distance sum rule in strong gravitational lensing (SGL) provides such a way, provided that the three distances in the sum rule can be calibrated by other observations. In this paper, we propose that gravitational waves (GWs) can be used to provide the distance calibration in the SGL method, which can avoid the dependence on distance ladder and cover a wider redshift range. Using the simulated GW standard siren observation by the Einstein Telescope as an example, we show that this scheme is feasible and advantageous. We find that $\Delta\Omega_k\simeq 0.17$ with the current SGL data, which is slightly more precise than the case of using SN to calibrate. Furthermore, we consider the forthcoming LSST survey that is expected to observe many SGL systems, and we find that about $10^4$ SGL data could provide the precise measurement of $\Delta\Omega_k\simeq 10^{-2}$ with the help of GWs. In addition, our results confirm that this method of constraining $\Omega_k$ is strongly dependent on lens models. However, obtaining a more accurate phenomenological model for lens galaxies is highly predictable as future massive surveys observe more and more SGL samples, which will significantly improve the constraint of cosmic curvature.