Image credit: ESA/Hubble; NASA, Suyu et al.
Using galaxies as vast gravitational lenses, an international group of astronomers has made an independent measurement of how fast the universe is expanding. The newly measured expansion rate is consistent with earlier findings in the local universe based on more traditional methods, but intriguingly remains higher than the value derived by the Planck satellite – a tension that could hint at new physics.
The rate at which the universe is expanding, defined by the Hubble constant, is one of the fundamental quantities in cosmology and is usually determined by techniques that use Cepheid variables and supernovae as points of reference. A group of astronomers from the H0LiCOW collaboration led by Sherry Suyu of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Germany, ASIAA in Taiwan and the Technical University of Munich, used gravitational lensing to provide an independent measurement of this constant. The gravitational lens is made of a galaxy that deforms space–time and hence bends the light travelling from a background quasar, which is an extremely luminous and variable galaxy core. This bending results in multiple images, as seen from Earth, of the same quasar that are almost perfectly aligned with the lensing galaxy (see image).
While being simple in theory, in practice the new technique is rather complex. A straightforward equation relates the Hubble constant to the length of the deflected light rays between the quasar and Earth. Since the brightness of a quasar changes over time, astronomers can see the different images of the quasar flicker at different times, and the delays between them depend on the lengths of the paths the light has taken. Deriving the Hubble constant therefore depends on very precise modelling of the distribution of the mass in the lensing galaxy, as well as on several hundred accurate measurements of the multiple images of the quasar to derive its variability pattern over many years.
A possible explanation of this discrepancy… could involve an additional source of dark radiation in the early universe.
This complexity explains why the measurement of the Hubble constant – reported in a separate publication by H0LiCOW collaborator Vivien Bonvin from the EPFL in Switzerland and co-workers – relies on a total of four papers by the H0LiCOW collaboration. The obtained value of H0 = 71.9±2.7 km s–1 Mpc–1 is in excellent agreement with other recent determinations in the local universe using classical cosmic-distance ladder methods. One of these, by Adam Riess and collaborators, finds an even higher value of the Hubble constant (H0 = 73.2±1.7 km s–1 Mpc–1) and has therefore triggered a lot of interest in recent months.
The reason is that such values are in tension with the precise determination of the Hubble constant by the Planck satellite. Assuming standard “Lambda Cold Dark Matter” cosmology, the Planck collaboration derived from the cosmic-microwave-background radiation a value of H0 = 67.9±1.5 km s–1 Mpc–1 (CERN Courier May 2013 p12). The discrepancy between Planck’s probe of the early universe and local values of the Hubble constant could be an indication that we are missing a vital ingredient in our current understanding of the universe.
A possible explanation of this discrepancy, according to Riess and colleagues, could involve an additional source of dark radiation in the early universe, corresponding to a significant increase in the effective number of neutrino species. It will be interesting to follow this debate in the coming years, when new observing facilities and also new parallax measurements of Cepheid stars by the Gaia satellite will reduce the uncertainty of the Hubble constant determination to a per cent or less.
