Standard Candles and Expansion - Cosmology question

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

 

This thread started in 2020 - Necro'd with a purpose!

I've run into a bunch of articles calling into question the 'standardness' of cepheids and Type 1a supernova.  I've also been reading about TRGBs as possible 'better candidates' to use than cepheids or 1a's (and that TRGB calculations don't jibe with either distance or rate of expansion as conventionally understood...)

Along the way, I read with interest the very careful way in which the authors suggest that the conventional acceptance of cosmological acceleration may have problems.  Most articles don't entirely or directly question DM / DE caused expansion, but suggest problems with the rate, while a rare few suggest that all the measurements of distance and acceleration need to be recalculated anew to even know whether the expansion is actually occurring - much less whether it needs DM /DE to explain it.  There are other articles suggesting that the movement of local group and other nearby galaxies have been misinterpreted, the error of which makes cosmological expansion seem greater at distance than it actually is.

These articles are generally fairly recent - which I don't find surprising or controversial, as new technologies and ways of looking at data are bound to challenge what was long accepted as certain - when the numbers don't jibe.  The notable difference is how often I'm running into such articles now (as opposed to the last few decades), which tells me that something may be going on 'behind the scenes' in cosmology. 

The shocking thing for me however was to read that researchers were questioning just how standard the standard candles used are as early as 2011.  (https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/news/spitzercepheids20110112.html) .  Note: 2011 is also the year that Perlmutter, et.al. received the Nobel for their work showing the expansion of the universe could be strongly inferred by reference to the red shift of the standard candles. Their work is among the foundational pillars supporting the theory that acceleration reveals DE and DM. 

Seeing as DM and DE are and have been the accepted forces governing galaxy behavior and acceleration for decades now... Are these observations about different brightness based on metalicity in 1a supernova and age of cepheids being accepted as challenging acceleration and DM and DE among cosmologists? 

Or are these studies relegated to be a fringe like MoND etc? 

(it's always hard to tell from an article whether the status quo might be shifting) 

 

 

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[SOXBLOX]

Very intriguing. Could you point me to the articles, though? I won't know the arguments they make till I read them.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

9 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Very intriguing. Could you point me to the articles, though? I won't know the arguments they make till I read them.

Enjoy!

 

https://aasnova.org/2019/07/26/tldr-the-trgb-gives-us-another-h0ttake/

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/06/galaxy-s-brightest-explosions-go-nuclear-unexpected-trigger-pairs-dead-stars

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/cosmology-has-some-big-problems/

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2019/05/03/cosmologys-biggest-conundrum-is-a-clue-not-a-controversy/#264ca8d078ea

https://www.universetoday.com/92543/hubble-provides-evidence-for-double-degenerate-progenitor-supernova/

https://www.wired.com/story/science-has-a-new-way-to-gauge-the-universes-expansion-rate/

https://cosmosmagazine.com/space/supernova-standard-candles-not-so-standard-after-all

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/tension-continues-hubble-constant/

https://astronomy.com/news/2019/10/hubble-reveals-that-galaxies-without-dark-matter-really-exist

https://phys.org/news/2019-10-crisis-cosmology-universe-rapidly-believed.html

https://phys.org/news/2009-08-variability-1a-supernovae-implications-dark.html

https://astronomy.com/magazine/news/2020/05/is-the-big-bang-in-crisis

https://www.quantamagazine.org/no-dark-energy-no-chance-cosmologists-contend-20191217/

 

This is just a smattering.  Funny thing is that when you read enough of these articles, you start picking up on people saying,

"Hmmm... this data doesn't match up with the standard model"

with others replying,

"ZOMG!!! Dark Matter is a LIE!  It's all Turtles!"

and some saying,

"Hmmm, interesting data... I wonder if you've run the numbers properly?  Please check, because your result doesn't match expectations."

and other people shouting

"I have absolute faith in DM's existence.  You... You just called my baby UGLY!  I hate you you're stupid and the data you look at is bad and you are bad!"

 

 

Edited June 19, 2020 by JoeSchmuckatelli

[sevenperforce]

13 hours ago, JoeSchmuckatelli said:

Seeing as DM and DE are and have been the accepted forces governing galaxy behavior and acceleration for decades now... Are these observations about different brightness based on metalicity in 1a supernova and age of cepheids being accepted as challenging acceleration and DM and DE among cosmologists? 

Or are these studies relegated to be a fringe like MoND etc? 

(it's always hard to tell from an article whether the status quo might be shifting) 

It's a valid problem. We don't know for sure that distant 1a supernovae and local 1a supernovae have exactly the same brightness. There could be any number of reasons why they wouldn't be, and some observations suggest they aren't. But consistency remains the best hypothesis at this time.

[SOXBLOX]

Thanks for pulling all that; can't have been easy! 

So I think the major problem here is the discrepancy between estimates of H calculated using the Big Bang hypothesis and those using stars and supernovae in our immediate vicinity. It will be much easier to calibrate our standard candles once the Gaia dataset comes out and is analyzed. This will help refine all the expansion rate estimates. I'm strongly betting that the Gaia data will align with the higher "late universe" number. The early universe estimates rely heavily on Lambda-CDM and Big Bang assumptions which are not as solid as observations of nearby galaxies and current processes.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

6 hours ago, SOXBLOX said:

Thanks for pulling all that; can't have been easy! 

So I think the major problem here is the discrepancy between estimates of H calculated using the Big Bang hypothesis and those using stars and supernovae in our immediate vicinity. It will be much easier to calibrate our standard candles once the Gaia dataset comes out and is analyzed. This will help refine all the expansion rate estimates. I'm strongly betting that the Gaia data will align with the higher "late universe" number. The early universe estimates rely heavily on Lambda-CDM and Big Bang assumptions which are not as solid as observations of nearby galaxies and current processes.

That's just the tip of the iceberg - the easy stuff I pulled together in less than 20 minutes of typing on my phone. There's a plethora of reading on 'Crisis in Cosmology' - much of which is supportive of the status quo... But the fact that respected scientists are bucking the trend is notable. 

 

Like the Wired article above - this one (also, in part about Friedman and her work) https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sciencenews.org/article/debate-universe-expansion-rate-hubble-constant-physics-crisis/amp

...shows how contentious this is.  Reiss (who also received the Nobel with Perlmutter) really doesn't like the TRGB data, and there are many others who prefer different methods - all of whom are getting different answers.  TRGB is trending towards the Early Universe projections, whereas others are getting expansion rates far in excess of the numbers Reiss and Perlmutter got from Cepheids and 1a's.

What I read with interest is the part about accounting for dust- where the dustiness makes stars (or candles) seem further away than they are... Which is problematic for many of the yardsticks we've used in the past decades. 

Add to that the question raised in the Quanta article above (reporting on work published by an Oxford physicist in Astronomy & Astrophysics) who looked at 1a SN to find that local group motion may be causing distant 1a SN to only appear to be receding at the rate described by Perlmutter and Reiss (etc.) - ultimately questioning the very existence of DM/DE expansion along with observations of galaxies with apparently zero DM, and combined with the continued failures of ever more sensitive experiments to prove the existence of DM (much less DE) and things are looking interesting in Cosmology. 

 

 

Note: I'm well aware that 'failure to prove the existence" =/= 'proof of non-existence'... But the simple fact that Sakar and Friedman and others are even publishing in respectable journals is remarkable!  (in 2008, merely questioning the basis of DE got you driven from the room) 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

So, here is yet another measurement, using a different technique (radio telescopes and geometry) - and it gets yet another different value for H0. 

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200611133127.htm

Their data is closer to the Cepheids than from the TRGB and CMB predictions 

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

And yet another indication that our distance calculations using redshift may be inaccurate

Quote

An implication of this finding means that since most distant supernovae are seen through some haze, our current estimates of their distances may be affected.

https://www.universetoday.com/26277/intergalactic-dust-could-be-messing-up-observations/

also

https://www.msn.com/en-ph/news/technology/half-the-matter-in-the-universe-was-missing-we-found-it-hiding-between-galaxies/ar-BB14RxtY

 

With us now using Radio Telescope Arrays that cover the globe, I'm hopeful to see some really interesting work on re-estimates of the distances to galaxies and work on DM and DE estimates.

[JoeSchmuckatelli]

Necro Explanation

Spoiler

I started this thread way before Webb launched - and it's been interesting watching the early reports, both confirming 'anomalies' and 'nope, nothing wrong with the models'.  We probably have to await more detailed science for resolution... but its a fun conflict to watch.

Reading recently into a completely unrelated subject (Laramide Orogeny - the events that created the Rocky Mountains) I ran into an interesting talk about a paradigm shift in geologists' understanding of how the Rockies formed.*  I find that description for shifting paradigms in science relevant here.

 

The quote comes from Thomas Kuhn's "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions".

For a paradigm shift (a change in basic assumptions within the ruling framework of science) these steps occur:

• Accumulation of anomalies

• Crisis and emergence of Scientific theories

• Extraordinary science and scientific revolutions

• Resolution to revolution and paradigm shift

I list a bunch of articles in the third post of this thread - all of which relate to either Accumulation of Anomalies or Crisis and Emergence of Scientific Theories.

Webb offers us the ability to conduct Extraordinary Science.

 

The only question that remains is whether we are witnessing the emergence of a scientific revolution!

 

Here's a couple of 'Post Webb' articles to add to the fray:

Cosmology in turmoil | CNRS News

Is there a crisis in cosmology? Some scientists say yes - Big Think

JWST’s early, massive galaxies agree with ΛCDM cosmology | by Ethan Siegel | Starts With A Bang! | May, 2023 | Medium

 

I'll add this bit from Kuhn:

"The decision to reject one paradigm is always simultaneously the decision to accept another...  And the judgment leading to that decision involves the comparison of both paradigms with nature and with each other."

There are a lot of people who's careers are established upon the LCDM model, and to the extent that Webb data or pre-Webb observations conflict with that model, they're going to take a LOT of convincing.

I bring this up - because it wasn't long ago that Plate Techtonics was a rejected theory.  Accepting it did not come easily.  In fact, you pretty much had to have all the proponents of the old paradigm retire / die off for the new paradigm to be accepted.

I have no way of knowing whether something similar is taking place... but, again, it's fun to watch.

 

 

 

 

*For reference, the orogeny (formation) of the Rocky Mountains is very different from most mountain ranges. 

Spoiler

Typically, mountains form near continental plate boundaries with subducting oceanic crusts - and the combination of collisional forces and magmatic activity raise mountains - think Pacific Northwest Coastal Range, Cascade Range and Sierra Nevada mountains.  These all have significant volcanic activity associated with them.  The Rockies are distinct in that they are far from any plate boundary and there is very little magmatic activity associated with this orogeny.

The commonly held theory about the Rocky Mountain (Laramide) orogeny is that as the North American crust ground over the subducting Farallon Plate, instead of a deep dive (as is common), the subducting oceanic plate ground shallowly along under the NA crust for hundreds of miles and forced an uplift of basement rocks (hogbacks) in present day Colorado.  For decades this explanation was not seriously contested - and became the basic 'story' or paradigm for how the uplift occurred.  This paradigm is being revisited with several geologists suggesting continent to continent collisions (hit and run model) or collision with a massive sea-mount (Silezia - think something like Hawaii) resting atop the Farallon plate, likely created by the Yellowstone Hotspot.  These models suggest a very different set of forces created the Rockies.  Some data even suggest that the depth and weight of the Sierras would have prevented the Farallon from scraping eastward as shallowly as would be required to explain the Rockies.

These newer models are somewhat controversial - and the way that the geologists are approaching challenging the current paradigm is interesting.

 

Edited May 19, 2023 by JoeSchmuckatelli