Impact of gravitational waveform model systematics on the measurement of the Hubble constant

Nina Kunert*, Jonathan Gair, Peter T.H. Pang, Tim Dietrich

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Matching gravitational-wave observations of binary neutron stars with theoretical model predictions reveals important information about the sources, such as the masses and the distance to the stars. The latter can be used to determine the Hubble constant, the rate at which the Universe expands. One general problem of all astrophysical measurements is that theoretical models only approximate the real underlying physics, which can lead to systematic uncertainties introducing biases. However, the extent of this bias for the distance measurement due to uncertainties of gravitational waveform models is unknown. In this study, we analyze a synthetic population of 38 binary neutron star sources measured with Advanced LIGO and Advanced Virgo at design sensitivity. We employ a set of four different waveform models and estimate model-dependent systematic biases on the extraction of the Hubble constant using the bright siren method. Our results indicate that systematic biases are below statistical uncertainties for the current generation of gravitational-wave detectors.

Original languageEnglish
Article number043520
JournalPhysical Review D
Volume110
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 15 Aug 2024

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