hide
Free keywords:
Astrophysics, Cosmology and Extragalactic Astrophysics, astro-ph.CO, Astrophysics, High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena, astro-ph.HE,General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology, gr-qc
Abstract:
Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) are among preeminent distance ladders for
precision cosmology due to their intrinsic brightness, which allows them to be
observable at high redshifts. Their usefulness as unbiased estimators of
absolute cosmological distances however depends on accurate understanding of
their intrinsic brightness, or anchoring their distance scale. This knowledge
is based on calibrating their distances with Cepheids. Gravitational waves from
compact binary coalescences, being standard sirens, can be used to validate
distances to SNe Ia, when both occur in the same galaxy or galaxy cluster. The
current measurement of distances by the advanced LIGO and Virgo detector
network suffers from large statistical errors ($\sim 50\%$). However, we find
that using a third generation gravitational-wave detector network, standard
sirens will allow us to measure distances with an accuracy of $\sim
0.1\%$-$3\%$ for sources within $\le300$ Mpc. These are much smaller than the
dominant systematic error of $\sim 5\%$ due to radial peculiar velocity of host
galaxies. Therefore, gravitational-wave observations could soon add a new
cosmic distance ladder for an independent calibration of distances to SNe Ia.
