English

Determining the Hubble constant using Giant extragalactic HII regions and HII galaxies

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2015-06-04 v2

Abstract

We report the first results of a long term program aiming to provide accurate independent estimates of the Hubble constant (H0) using the L-sigma distance estimator for Giant extragalactic HII regions (GEHR) and HII galaxies. We have used VLT and Subaru high dispersion spectroscopic observations of a local sample of HII galaxies, identified in the SDSS DR7 catalogue in order to re-define and improve the L(Hbeta)-sigma distance indicator and to determine the Hubble constant. To this end we utilized as local calibration or `anchor' of this correlation, GEHR in nearby galaxies which have accurate distance measurements determined via primary indicators. Using our best sample of 69 nearby HII galaxies and 23 GEHR in 9 galaxies we obtain H0=74.3 +- 3.1 (statistical) +- 2.9 (systematic) km /s Mpc, in excellent agreement with, and independently confirming, the most recent SNe Ia based results.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1203.6222,
  title  = {Determining the Hubble constant using Giant extragalactic HII regions and HII galaxies},
  author = {Ricardo Chavez and Elena Terlevich and Roberto Terlevich and Manolis Plionis and Fabio Bresolin and Spyros Basilakos and Jorge Melnick},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1203.6222},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

5 pages, 4 figures; Replaces 1203.6222 after referee's suggestions; Accepted by MNRAS Letters