Abstract
Abstract The joint detection of gravitational waves (GWs) and electromagnetic radiation from the binary neutron star (BNS) merger GW170817 has provided unprecedented insight into a wide range of physical processes: heavy element synthesis via the r-process; the production of relativistic ejecta; the equation of state of neutron stars and the nature of the merger remnant; the binary coalescence timescale; and a measurement of the Hubble constant via the “standard siren” technique. In detail, all of these results depend on the distance to the host galaxy of the merger event, NGC 4993. In this Letter we measure the surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) distance to NGC 4993 in the F110W and F160W passbands of the Wide Field Camera 3 Infrared Channel (WFC3/IR) on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). For the preferred F110W passband we derive a distance modulus of ( m − M ) = 33.05 ± 0.08 ± 0.10 mag, or a linear distance d = 40.7 ± 1.4 ± 1.9 Mpc (random and systematic errors, respectively); a virtually identical result is obtained from the F160W data. This is the most precise distance to NGC 4993 available to date. Combining our distance measurement with the corrected recession velocity of NGC 4993 implies a Hubble constant H 0 = 71.9 ± 7.1 km s−1 Mpc−1. A comparison of our result to the GW-inferred value of H 0 indicates a binary orbital inclination of i ≳ 137°. The SBF technique can be applied to early-type host galaxies of BNS mergers to ∼100 Mpc with HST and possibly as far as ∼300 Mpc with the James Webb Space Telescope, thereby helping to break the inherent distance-inclination degeneracy of the GW data at distances where many future BNS mergers are likely to be detected.
Highlights
PSF fit External source fit Spatial power spectrum fit0.05 measured m total0.056–0.068 0.056–0.071 added in quadratureCalibration UncertaintiesPSF normalization0.02 comparison with J15(g475 −z 850 ) color correction0.027 background, extinction (SF11)(J 110 −H 160 ) color correction0.014 background, extinction (SF11)Stellar population scatter
On 2017 August 17, the Advanced LIGO and Virgo the six high-precision distance-determination methods disgravitational wave (GW) observatories detected a binary cussed in the comprehensive review by Freedman & Madore neutron star (BNS) merger for the firsttime (GW170817, (2010), three (Cepheids,tip of the red giant branch, and Abbott et al.2017c)
Tanvir) collected data in the F110W and F160W filters 1(1J0 and H160 hereafter), both of which have been previously calibrated for the dominated by the distance-inclination degeneracy inherent in SBF method (Jensen et a2l.015)
Summary
On 2017 August 17, the Advanced LIGO and Virgo the six high-precision distance-determination methods disgravitational wave (GW) observatories detected a binary cussed in the comprehensive review by Freedman & Madore neutron star (BNS) merger for the firsttime Tanvir) collected data in the F110W and F160W filters 1(1J0 and H160 hereafter), both of which have been previously calibrated for the dominated by the distance-inclination degeneracy inherent in SBF method (Jensen et a2l.015). Mpc (Abbott et al 2017a);the uncertainty is dominated by a fundamental detheir own; the data from the two other programs were combined to achieve the required depth (893 s total in each filter). NGC 4993, from the galaxy redshift and adopting the value using pixel interpolation algorithms (as is the default in the for H0 from Riess et al (2016); by combining the FP and the H 0-dependent distance the authors obtained d = 41.0 ± 3.1 Mpc. WFC3 pipeline), correlations are introduced in the noise of neighboring pixels,which can adversely affect the SBF fitting procedure (e.g.C, antiello et al.2005; Mei et al.2005).
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