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Hubble Law: Measure and Interpretation

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Abstract

We have had the chance to live through a fascinating revolution in measuring the fundamental empirical cosmological Hubble law. The key progress is analysed: (1) improvement of observational means (ground-based radio and optical observations, space missions); (2) understanding of the biases that affect both distant and local determinations of the Hubble constant; (3) new theoretical and observational results. These circumstances encourage us to take a critical look at some facts and ideas related to the cosmological red-shift. This is important because we are probably on the eve of a new understanding of our Universe, heralded by the need to interpret some cosmological key observations in terms of unknown processes and substances.

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Notes

  1. V may be replaced by \(c\,z\), where c is the velocity of light and z the so-called “red-shift”.

  2. Sosie is a French word for twins not genetically linked.

  3. Some objects may be excluded from the sample because of an incomplete set of data, as it will be seen for Cepheids.

  4. The letter \(\kappa \) refers to the absorption by ionized Helium.

  5. The incompleteness has complex origin for Cepheids because to be included in the sample both apparent magnitudes (e.g. V and I) must be observed during a full phase and this is affected by extinction and amplitude.

  6. Note that it would be possible to calculate the colour excess (and thus the intrinsic \((V-I)_0\)) if the PLC relation could be replaced by a PL relation. This can be done by writing two Eq. 6, in V and I, equating them and by extracting the colour excess.

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Acknowledgements

Y.B. thanks for support from the Saint-Petersburg State University research Project No. 6.38.18.2014. We are very grateful to our collaborators over many years Lucienne Gouguenheim, Gilles Theureau, Jean-Noël Terry, Chantal Petit and Mikko Hanski, and remember with admiration the late Lucette Bottinelli and Timo Ekholm. We want to sincerely thank referees for their valuable contributions.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Observatoire de Lyon, Retired from Universite Claude-Bernard, 69230, Saint-Genis Laval, France

    Georges Paturel

  2. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tuorla Observatory, University of Turku, 21500, Piikkiö, Finland

    Pekka Teerikorpi

  3. Department of Astronomy, St. Petersburg State University, Staryj Peterhoff, St.Petersburg, Russia, 198504

    Yurij Baryshev

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  1. Georges Paturel
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Paturel, G., Teerikorpi, P. & Baryshev, Y. Hubble Law: Measure and Interpretation. Found Phys 47, 1208–1228 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-017-0093-4

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