Allan Sandage and the cosmic expansion

This is an account of Allan Sandage's work on(1) The character of the expansion field. For many years he has been the strongest defender of an expanding Universe. He later explained the CMB dipole by a local velocity of 220±50km s−1 toward the Virgo cluster and by a bulk motion of the Local supercluster (extending out to ∼3500km s−1) of 450-500km s−1 toward an apex at l=275, b=12. Allowing for these streaming velocities he found linear expansion to hold down to local scales (∼300km s−1). (2) The calibration of the Hubble constant. Probing different methods he finally adopted—from Cepheid-calibrated SNe Ia and from independent RRLyr-calibrated TRGBs—H 0=62.3±1.3±5.0km s−1 Mpc−

Allan Sandage and the distance scale

Allan Sandage returned to the distance scale and the calibration of the Hubble constant again and again during his active life, experimenting with different distance indicators. In 1952 his proof of the high luminosity of Cepheids confirmed Baade's revision of the distance scale (H0 ~ 250 km s−1 Mpc−1). During the next 25 years, he lowered the value to 75 and 55. Upon the arrival of the Hubble Space Telescope, he observed Cepheids to calibrate the mean luminosity of nearby Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) which, used as standard candles, led to the cosmic value of H0 = 62.3 ± 1.3 ± 5.0 km s−1 Mpc−1. Eventually he turned to the tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) as a very powerful distance indicator. A compilation of 176 TRGB distances yielded a mean, very local value of H0 = 62.9 ± 1.6 km s−1 Mpc−1 and shed light on the streaming velocities in the Local Supercluster. Moreover, TRGB distances are now available for six SNe Ia; if their mean luminosity is applied to distant SNe Ia, one obtains H0 = 64.6 ± 1.6 ± 2.0 km s−1 Mpc−1. The weighted mean of the two independent large-scale calibrations yields H0 = 64.1 km s−1 Mpc−1 within 3.6

The expansion field: the value of H 0

Any calibration of the present value of the Hubble constant (H 0) requires recession velocities and distances of galaxies. While the conversion of observed velocities into true recession velocities has only a small effect on the result, the derivation of unbiased distances which rest on a solid zero point and cover a useful range of about 4-30Mpc is crucial. A list of 279 such galaxy distances within v4.5 Mpc. RRLyr star-calibrated TRGB distances of 78 galaxies above this limit give H 0=63.0±1.6 at an effective distance of 6Mpc. They compensate the effect of peculiar motions by their large number. Support for this result comes from 28 independently calibrated Cepheids that give H 0=63.4±1.7 at 15Mpc. This agrees also with the large-scale value of H 0=61.2±0.5 from the distant, Cepheid-calibrated SNeIa. A mean value of H 0=62.3±1.3 is adopted. Because the value depends on two independent zero points of the distance scale its systematic error is estimated to be 6%. Other determinations of H 0 are discussed. They either conform with the quoted value (e.g. line width data of spirals or the D n −σ method of E galaxies) or are judged to be inconclusive. Typical errors of H 0 come from the use of a universal, yet unjustified P-L relation of Cepheids, the neglect of selection bias in magnitude-limited samples, or they are inherent to the adopted model

Analysis of cool DO-type white dwarfs from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 10

We report on the identification of 22 new cool DO-type white dwarfs (WD) detected in Data Release 10 (DR10) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Among them, we found one more member of the so-called hot-wind DO WDs, which show ultrahigh excitation absorption lines. Our non-LTE model atmosphere analyses of these objects and two not previously analyzed hot-wind DO WDs, revealed effective temperatures and gravities in the ranges Teff=45-80kK and log g= 7.50-8.75. In eight of the spectra we found traces of C (0.001-0.01, by mass). Two of these are the coolest DO WDs ever discovered that still show a considerable amount of C in their atmospheres. This is in strong contradiction with diffusion calculations, and probably, similar to what is proposed for DB WDs, a weak mass-loss is present in DO WDs. One object is the most massive DO WD discovered so far with a mass of 1.07 M_sun if it is an ONe-WD or 1.09 M_sun if it is a CO-WD. We furthermore present the mass distribution of all known hot non-DA (pre-) WDs and derive the hot DA to non-DA ratio for the SDSS DR7 spectroscopic sample. The mass distribution of DO WDs beyond the wind limit strongly deviates from the mass distribution of the objects before the wind limit. We address this phenomenon by applying different evolutionary input channels. We argue that the DO WD channel may be fed by about 13% by post-extreme-horizontal branch stars and that PG1159 stars and O(He) stars may contribute in a similar extent to the non-DA WD channel.Comment: 13 pages, accepted for publication in A&