JWST Observations Reject Unrecognized Crowding of Cepheid Photometry as an Explanation for the Hubble Tension at 8σ Confidence

JWST Observations Reject Unrecognized Crowding of Cepheid Photometry as an Explanation for the Hubble Tension at 8σ Confidence

Jan 3, 2024 | ADAM G. RIESS, GAGANDEEP S. ANAND, WENLONG YUAN, STEFANO CASERTANO, ANDREW DOLPHIN, LUCAS M. MACRI, LOUISE BREUVAL, DAN SCOLNIC, MARSHALL PERRIN, RICHARD I. ANDERSON
The study presents high-definition observations of over 1000 Cepheids in NGC 4258 and five hosts of eight Type Ia supernovae using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). These observations, spanning a wider distance range than previous studies, allow for a robust comparison with Hubble Space Telescope (HST) measurements. The superior resolution of JWST eliminates crowding noise, the largest source of variance in near-infrared Cepheid Period-Luminosity relations (Leavitt laws) measured with HST. By using two epochs to constrain Cepheid phases and three filters to remove reddening, the dispersion in the Cepheid P–L relations is reduced by a factor of 2.5. The results show no significant difference in mean distance measurements between HST and JWST, with a formal difference of -0.01±0.03 mag. This finding strongly rejects the hypothesis that unrecognized crowding of Cepheid photometry from HST, which grows with distance, is the cause of the "Hubble Tension" at 8.2σ confidence. The study concludes that errors in photometric measurements of Cepheids across the distance ladder do not significantly contribute to the Tension.The study presents high-definition observations of over 1000 Cepheids in NGC 4258 and five hosts of eight Type Ia supernovae using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). These observations, spanning a wider distance range than previous studies, allow for a robust comparison with Hubble Space Telescope (HST) measurements. The superior resolution of JWST eliminates crowding noise, the largest source of variance in near-infrared Cepheid Period-Luminosity relations (Leavitt laws) measured with HST. By using two epochs to constrain Cepheid phases and three filters to remove reddening, the dispersion in the Cepheid P–L relations is reduced by a factor of 2.5. The results show no significant difference in mean distance measurements between HST and JWST, with a formal difference of -0.01±0.03 mag. This finding strongly rejects the hypothesis that unrecognized crowding of Cepheid photometry from HST, which grows with distance, is the cause of the "Hubble Tension" at 8.2σ confidence. The study concludes that errors in photometric measurements of Cepheids across the distance ladder do not significantly contribute to the Tension.
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Understanding JWST Observations Reject Unrecognized Crowding of Cepheid Photometry as an Explanation for the Hubble Tension at 8%CF%83 Confidence