English

A measurement of Hubble's Constant using Fast Radio Bursts

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2023-05-09 v3 High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena

Abstract

We constrain the Hubble constant H0_0 using Fast Radio Burst (FRB) observations from the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) and Murriyang (Parkes) radio telescopes. We use the redshift-dispersion measure (`Macquart') relationship, accounting for the intrinsic luminosity function, cosmological gas distribution, population evolution, host galaxy contributions to the dispersion measure (DMhost_{\rm host}), and observational biases due to burst duration and telescope beamshape. Using an updated sample of 16 ASKAP FRBs detected by the Commensal Real-time ASKAP Fast Transients (CRAFT) Survey and localised to their host galaxies, and 60 unlocalised FRBs from Parkes and ASKAP, our best-fitting value of H0_0 is calculated to be 738+1273_{-8}^{+12} km s1^{-1} Mpc1^{-1}. Uncertainties in FRB energetics and DMhost_{\rm host} produce larger uncertainties in the inferred value of H0_0 compared to previous FRB-based estimates. Using a prior on H0_0 covering the 67--74 km s1^{-1} Mpc1^{-1} range, we estimate a median DMhost=18648+59_{\rm host} = 186_{-48}^{+59} km s1^{-1} Mpc1^{-1}, exceeding previous estimates. We confirm that the FRB population evolves with redshift similarly to the star-formation rate. We use a Schechter luminosity function to constrain the maximum FRB energy to be log10Emax=41.260.22+0.27\log_{10} E_{\rm max}=41.26_{-0.22}^{+0.27} erg assuming a characteristic FRB emission bandwidth of 1 GHz at 1.3 GHz, and the cumulative luminosity index to be γ=0.950.15+0.18\gamma=-0.95_{-0.15}^{+0.18}. We demonstrate with a sample of 100 mock FRBs that H0_0 can be measured with an uncertainty of ±2.5\pm 2.5 km s1^{-1} Mpc1^{-1}, demonstrating the potential for clarifying the Hubble tension with an upgraded ASKAP FRB search system. Last, we explore a range of sample and selection biases that affect FRB analyses.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2208.00819,
  title  = {A measurement of Hubble's Constant using Fast Radio Bursts},
  author = {C. W. James and E. M. Ghosh and J. X. Prochaska and K. W. Bannister and S. Bhandari and C. K. Day and A. T. Deller and M. Glowacki and A. C. Gordon and K. E. Heintz and L. Marnoch and S. D. Ryder and D. R. Scott and R. M. Shannon and N. Tejos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2208.00819},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

21 pages, 19 figures, 6 tables, accepted by MNRAS, updated Table 5 and Figure 5