Reassessing the constraints from SH0ES extragalactic Cepheid amplitudes on systematic blending bias

Abstract

ABSTRACT The SH0ES collaboration Hubble constant determination is in a ∼5σ difference with the Planck value, known as the Hubble tension. The accuracy of the Hubble constant measured with extragalactic Cepheids depends on robust stellar-crowding background estimation. Riess et al. (R20) compared the light-curve amplitudes of extragalactic and MW Cepheids to constrain an unaccounted systematic blending bias, $\gamma =-0.029\pm 0.037\, \rm {mag}$, which cannot explain the required, $\gamma =0.24\pm 0.05\, \rm {mag}$, to resolve the Hubble tension. Further checks by Riess et al. demonstrate that a possible blending is not likely related to the size of the crowding correction. We repeat the R20 analysis, with the following main differences: (1) we limit the extragalactic and MW Cepheids comparison to periods $P\lesssim 50\, \rm {d}$, since the number of MW Cepheids with longer periods is minimal; (2) we use publicly available data to recalibrate amplitude ratios of MW Cepheids in standard passbands; (3) we remeasure the amplitudes of Cepheids in NGC 5584 and NGC 4258 in two Hubble Space Telescope filters (F555W and F350LP) to improve the empirical constraint on their amplitude ratio A555/A350. We show that the filter transformations introduce an ${\approx }0.04\, \rm {mag}$ uncertainty in determining γ, not included by R20. While our final estimate, $\gamma =0.013\pm 0.057\, \rm {mag}$, is consistent with the value derived by R20 and is consistent with no bias, the error is somewhat larger, and the best-fitting value is shifted by ${\approx }0.04\, \rm {mag}$ and closer to zero. Future observations, especially with JWST, would allow better calibration of γ.