Related papers: A Tale of Two Distances
The formal division of the distance indicators into primary and secondary leads to difficulties in description of methods which can actually be used in two ways: with, and without the support of the other methods for scaling. Thus instead…
The time delays between the multiple images of a strong lens system, together with a model of the lens mass distribution, allow a one-step measurement of a cosmological distance, namely, the "time-delay distance" of the lens (D_dt) that…
The cosmic distance ladder is the succession of techniques by which it is possible to determine distances to astronomical objects. Here, we present a new method to build the cosmic distance ladder, going from local astrophysical…
Gravitational waves detected from well-localized inspiraling binaries would allow us to determine, directly and independently, binary luminosity and redshift. In this case, such systems could behave as "standard candles" providing an…
The analysis of Type Ia supernova data over the past decade has been a notable success story in cosmology. These standard candles offer us an unparalleled opportunity of studying the cosmological expansion out to a redshift of ~1.5. The…
We consider the efficacy of using luminosity distance measurements of deep redshift supernovae to discriminate between two forms of dark energy, quintessence (a scalar field with canonical kinetic terms rolling down a potential) and…
Standard candles can probe the evolution of dark energy in a large redshift range. But the cosmic opacity can degrade the quality of standard candles. In this paper, we use the latest observations, including type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) from…
In a previous paper, we demonstrated a single-rung method for measuring cosmological distances in active galactic nuclei (AGN) that can be used from low redshift (z < 0.1) to high redshift (z > 3). This method relies on the assumption that…
Three different methods of measuring cosmology with gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been proposed since a relation between the $\gamma$-ray energy $E_{\gamma} $ of a GRB jet and the peak energy $E_p$ of the $\nu F_{\nu}$ spectrum in the burst…
Weak lensing provides a direct measure of the distribution of mass in the universe, and is therefore a uniquely powerful probe of dark matter. Weak lensing can also be used to measure the twin phenomenon of dark energy, via its effect upon…
We use current observations on the number statistics of gravitationally lensed optical arcs towards galaxy clusters to derive an upper limit on the cosmological mass density of the Universe. The gravitational lensing statistics due to…
FRIIb radio galaxies provide a tool to determine the coordinate distance to sources out to redshifts of two. The coordinate distance depends on the present values of global cosmological parameters, quintessence, and the equation of state of…
Recent results regarding dark energy are mutually inconsistent under the $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model, hinting at the possibility of undiscovered physics. However, the currently accepted cosmological parameters come from a joint…
We study the redshift distribution of two samples of early-type gravitational lenses, extracted from a larger collection of 122 systems, to constrain the cosmological constant in the LCDM model and the parameters of a set of alternative…
The first section discusses a recalibration of the luminosity-linewidth technique and its use in a determination of H_0. The recalibration introduces (i) new cluster calibration data, (ii) new corrections for reddening as a function of…
In the presence of the gravitational field, the energy density of matter no longer coincides with its mass density. A discrepancy exists, of course, also between the associated power spectra. Within the $\Lambda$CDM model, we derive a…
Redshifts used in current cosmological supernova samples are measured using two primary techniques, one based on well-measured host galaxy spectral lines and the other based on supernova-dominated spectra. Here, we construct an updated…
We present limits on the cosmological constant from the statistics of gravitational lenses using newly completed quasar surveys, new lens data, and a range of lens models. The formal limit is $\lambda_0 < 0.66$ at 95\% confidence in flat…
The Cosmic Defect theory has been confronted with four observational constraints: primordial nuclear species abundances emerging from the big bang nucleosynthesis; large scale structure formation in the universe; cosmic microwave background…
If quantum fields exist in extra compact dimensions, they will give rise to a quantum vacuum or Casimir energy. That vacuum energy will manifest itself as a cosmological constant. The fact that supernova and cosmic microwave background data…