Hubble Constant Measurement from Three Large-separation Quasars Strongly Lensed by Galaxy Clusters

Napier, Kate; Sharon, Keren; Dahle, Håkon; Bayliss, Matthew; Gladders, Michael D.; Mahler, Guillaume; Rigby, Jane R.; Florian, Michael

Abstract

Tension between cosmic microwave background–based and distance ladder–based determinations of the Hubble constant H 0 motivates the pursuit of independent methods that are not subject to the same systematic effects. A promising alternative, proposed by Refsdal in 1964, relies on the inverse scaling of H 0 with the delay between the arrival times of at least two images of a strongly lensed variable source such as a quasar. To date, Refsdal’s method has mostly been applied to quasars lensed by individual galaxies rather than by galaxy clusters. Using the three quasars strongly lensed by galaxy clusters (SDSS J1004+4112, SDSS J1029+2623, and SDSS J2222+2745) that have both multiband Hubble Space Telescope data and published time delay measurements, we derive H 0, accounting for the systematic and statistical sources of uncertainty. While a single time delay measurement does not yield a well-constrained H 0 value, analyzing the systems together tightens the constraint. Combining the six time delays measured in the three cluster-lensed quasars gives H 0 = 74.1 ± 8.0 km s−1 Mpc−1. To reach 1% uncertainty in H 0, we estimate that a sample size of order of 620 time delay measurements of similar quality as those from SDSS J1004+4112, SDSS J1029+2623, and SDSS J2222+2745 would be needed. Improving the lens modeling uncertainties by a factor of two and a half may reduce the needed sample size to 100 time delays, potentially reachable in the next decade.

Citation

Napier, K., Sharon, K., Dahle, H., Bayliss, M., Gladders, M. D., Mahler, G., …Florian, M. (2023). Hubble Constant Measurement from Three Large-separation Quasars Strongly Lensed by Galaxy Clusters. Astrophysical Journal, 959(2), Article 134. https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad045a

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 16, 2023
• Online Publication Date: Dec 14, 2023
• Publication Date: Dec 20, 2023
• Deposit Date: Jan 11, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 12, 2024
• Journal: The Astrophysical Journal
• Print ISSN: 0004-637X
• Publisher: American Astronomical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 959
• Issue: 2
• Article Number: 134
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ad045a
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2027951