Related papers: GAIA and the Extragalactic Distance Scale
Type Ia supernovae (SNe~Ia) are central to studies of cosmic expansion, under the assumption that their absolute magnitude $M_B$ does not evolve with redshift. Even small drifts in brightness can bias cosmological parameters such as $H_0$…
GAIA is the ``super-Hipparcos'' satellite scheduled for launch in 2010 by the European Space Agency. It is a scanning satellite that carries out multi-colour, multi-epoch photometry on all objects brighter than 20th magnitude. We conduct…
The local determination of the Hubble Constant sits at a crossroad. Current estimates of the local expansion rate of the Universe differ by about 1.7-sigma, derived from the Cepheid and TRGB based calibrations, applied to type Ia…
Recent analyses suggest that distance residuals measured from Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are correlated with local host galaxy properties within a few kpc of the SN explosion. However, the well-established correlation with global host…
Relative distances between a high-redshift sample of Type Ia supernovae (SNe~Ia), anchored to a low-redshift sample, have been instrumental in drawing insights on the nature of the dark energy driving the accelerated expansion of the…
Recent studies found a correlation with $\sim$3 sigma significance between the local star formation measured by GALEX in Type Ia supernova (SN Ia) host galaxies and the distances or dispersions derived from these SNe. We search for these…
As part of an on-going effort to identify, understand and correct for astrophysics biases in the standardization of Type Ia supernovae (SNIa) for cosmology, we have statistically classified a large sample of nearby SNeIa into those located…
The advent of high-precision Gaia parallaxes for Milky Way Cepheids enables per cent-level calibration of the local distance ladder and $H_0$. We revisit the Milky Way Cepheid calibration from Gaia EDR3 parallaxes using a fully…
The local distance ladder estimate of the Hubble constant ($H_0$) is important in cosmology, given the recent tension with the early universe inference. We estimate $H_0$ from the Type Ia supernova (SN~Ia) distance ladder, inferring SN~Ia…
GAIA will provide a multi-colour photometric and astrometric census of some one billion compact sources, complete to 20th magnitude. In addition, spectra for radial velocities will be obtained for about 30 million stars brighter than V=17.…
We matched the astrometry of central stars (CSs) of spectroscopically-confirmed Galactic planetary nebulae (PNe) with DR2 Gaia parallaxes ($p$), finding 430 targets in common with $p>0$ and $|\sigma_{\rm p}/p|<1$. A catalog of PNe whose CSs…
Context: The distance to the Galactic Centre (GC) is of importance for the distance scale in the Universe. The value derived by Eisenhauer et al. (2005) of 7.62 +- 0.32 kpc based on the orbit of one star around the central black hole is…
GAIA is the ``super-Hipparcos'' survey satellite selected as a Cornerstone 6 mission by the European Space Agency. GAIA can measure microlensing by the small excursions of the light centroid that occur during events. The all-sky…
We review the use of Type Ia supernovae for cosmological distance determinations. Low-redshift SNe Ia (z < 0.1) demonstrate that the Hubble expansion is linear, that H_0 = 65 +/- 2 (statistical) km/s/Mpc, and that the properties of dust in…
We review the use of Type Ia supernovae for cosmological distance determinations. Low-redshift SNe Ia ($z \lesssim 0.1$) demonstrate that (a) the Hubble expansion is linear, (b) $H_0 = 65 \pm 2$ (statistical) km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$, (c) the…
This project aims at exploiting the wide-field and limiting-magnitude capabilities of the LSST to fully characterise the resolved stellar populations in/around six Local Group stellar systems of different morphological type at ~30 to ~400…
We have applied our approach of using ''SNe Ia twins''in the Hubble flow to obtain distances to SNe Ia at z $>$ 0.015 and derive H$_{0}$. Our results, taking a single step between the low z domain and the Hubble flow, validate the three…
I summarize recent work comparing relative distances measured to individual galaxies with independent methods. The comparisons include: ground-based surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) and fundamental plane distances to 170 galaxies,…
In this paper we gauge the potentiality of Gaia in the distance scale calibration of planetary nebulae (PNe) by assessing the impact of DR1 parallaxes of central stars of Galactic PNe (CSPNe) against known physical relations. For selected…
GAIA has been approved to provide the data needed to quantify the formation and evolution of the Milky Way Galaxy, and its near neighbours. That requires study of all four key Galactic stellar populations: Bulge, Halo, Thick Disk, Thin…