English

Exploring the cosmic microwave background dipole direction using gamma-ray bursts

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2025-11-19 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We search for dipole variations in the Hubble constant H0H_0 using gamma-ray burst (GRB) data, as such anisotropies may shed light on the Hubble tension. We employ the most recent and reliable GRB catalogs from the EpEisoE_{p}-E_{iso} and the L0EpTL_0-E_{p}-T correlations. Despite their large uncertainties, GRBs are particularly suited for this analysis due to their redshift coverage up to z9z\sim9, their isotropic sky distribution that minimizes directional bias, and their strong correlations whose normalizations act as proxies for H0H_0. To this aim, a whole sky scan - partitioning GRB data into hemispheres - enabled to define dipole directions by fitting the relevant GRB correlation and cosmological parameters. The statistical significance across the full H0H_0 dipole maps, one per correlation, is then evaluated through the normalization differences between hemispheres and compared against the CMB dipole direction. The method is then validated by simulating directional anisotropies via Markov Chain Monte Carlo analyses for both correlations. Comparison with previous literature confirms the robustness of the method, while no significant dipole evidence is detected, consistently with the expected isotropy of GRBs. This null result is discussed in light of future analyses involving larger datasets.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2508.04304,
  title  = {Exploring the cosmic microwave background dipole direction using gamma-ray bursts},
  author = {Orlando Luongo and Marco Muccino and Francesco Sorrenti},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.04304},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

10 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables

R2 v1 2026-07-01T04:37:04.805Z