Speaker
Description
Redshift-independent distances are crucial to build the distance ladder and make model-independent determinations of the Hubble constant. Only a few standard candle or ruler methods have been used to calibrate the first two rungs of the distance ladder (for example Cepheids, TRGBs, Tully-Fisher, and JAGB). However a great range of methods have been used to measure distances directly. I will investigate the NASA/IPAC Extragalactic Database of Distances (NED-D), which provides measurements from 76 different distance indicators. As a first step towards incorporating some of these methods into the distance ladder, I quantify both their self-consistency (among measurements to the same galaxies from a given indicator) and cross-consistency with other indicators. While the majority of the methods provide statistically inconsistent results, I identify seven methods -- none of which have previously been used for the distance ladder -- that are perfectly consistent. I also investigate the Cepheid distances from the SH0ES 2022 catalogue, finding no evidence of significant statistical inconsistencies.. I will also discuss ongoing work aimed at improving the NED-D catalogue with the aim of making it suitable for cosmological analyses.
