Revisiting the Hubble constant, sound horizon and cosmography from late-time Universe observations

TL;DR

This paper combines multiple late-time universe observations to estimate the Hubble constant and sound horizon in a model-independent way, addressing the Hubble tension and supporting higher H0 values consistent with local measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a novel combination of BAO, strong lensing, and supernova data with cosmography techniques to determine H0 and r_d independently of cosmological models.

Findings

H0 estimated around 73 km/s/Mpc, consistent with SH0ES.

r_d around 138 Mpc, smaller than Planck estimates.

Results favor higher H0 and smaller r_d, alleviating the Hubble tension.

Abstract

The Hubble tension has become one of the central problems in cosmology. In this work, we determine the Hubble constant $H_0$ and sound horizon $r_d$ by using the combination of Baryon Acoustic Oscillations (BAOs) from DESI surveys, time-delay lensed quasars from H0LiCOW collaborations and the Pantheon supernovae observations. We consider two cosmological approaches, i.e., Taylor series and Pad\'{e} polynomials, to avoid cosmological dependence. The reason for using this combination of data is that the absolute distance provided by strong gravitational lensing helps anchor the relative distance of BAO, and supernovae provide a robust history of universe evolution. {{Combining the 6 time-delay distance (6$D_{\Delta t}$) plus 4 angular diameter distance to the deflector (4$D_d$) measurements of time-delay lensed quasars,}} the BAO and the type Ia of supernovae (SNe Ia) datasets, we obtain a model-independent result of $r_d = 138.2_{-3.9}^{+3.3}$ Mpc and $H_0 = 72.9^{+1.8}_{-1.8}$ ${\mathrm{~km~s^{-1}~Mpc^{-1}}}$ for the Taylor series cosmography and $r_d = 137.0_{-3.7}^{+3.2}$ Mpc and $H_0 = 73.1_{-1.7}^{+1.8}$ ${\mathrm{~km~s^{-1}~Mpc^{-1}}}$ for the Pad\'{e} polynomials cosmography. The determination of $r_d$ and $H_0$ prefers larger $H_0$ and smaller $r_d$ than Planck data under the assumption of flat-$\Lambda$CDM model. However, the values of $H_0$ are consistent with the $H_0$ determination from SH0ES collaboration.