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A local resolution of the Hubble tension: The impact of screened fifth forces on the cosmic distance ladder

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arxiv 1907.03778 v4 pith:UMWFVRYE submitted 2019-07-08 astro-ph.CO astro-ph.GA

classification astro-ph.COastro-ph.GA
keywords localdistancefifthladderscreeningforcemodelsscreened
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abstract

The discrepancy between the values of the Hubble constant $H_0$ derived from the local distance ladder and the cosmic microwave background provides a tantalising hint of new physics. We explore a potential resolution involving screened fifth forces in the local Universe, which alter the Cepheid calibration of supernova distances. In particular, if the Cepheids with direct distance measurements from parallax or water masers are screened but a significant fraction of those in other galaxies are not, neglecting the difference between their underlying period--luminosity relations biases the local $H_0$ measurement high. This difference derives from a reduction in the Cepheid pulsation period and possible increase in luminosity under a fifth force. We quantify the internal and environmental gravitational properties of the Riess et al. distance ladder galaxies to assess their degrees of screening under a range of phenomenological models, and propagate this information into the $H_0$ posterior as a function of fifth force strength. We consider well-studied screening models in scalar--tensor gravity theories such as chameleon, K-mouflage and Vainshtein, along with a recently-proposed mechanism based on baryon--dark matter interactions in which screening is governed by local dark matter density. We find that a fifth force strength $\sim5-30\%$ that of gravity can alleviate (though not resolve) the $H_0$ tension in some scenarios, around the sensitivity level at which tests based on other distance ladder data can constrain this strength. Although our analysis is exploratory and based on screening models not necessarily realised in full theories, our results demonstrate that new physics-based local resolutions of the $H_0$ tension are possible, supplementing those already known in the pre-recombination era.

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Cited by 8 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. The Hubble Hunter's Guide

    astro-ph.CO 2019-08 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    The least unlikely fixes to the Hubble tension raise the expansion rate in the decade before recombination, and these fixes generically leave oscillatory residuals in CMB spectra that resemble Planck's A_L and matter-...

  2. Direct detection of solar chameleons with electron recoil data from XENONnT

    hep-ph 2025-11 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    XENONnT electron-recoil data bound solar chameleons to log10 β_eff < −6.9, independent of the potential index n for inverse power-law chameleons at the dark-energy scale.

  3. Dark Neutrino interactions phase out the Hubble tension

    hep-ph 2019-08 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    Dark matter-neutrino interactions that block neutrino free streaming shift CMB acoustic peaks and reduce the Hubble tension from about 3.8σ to about 2.1σ in a fit to Planck and WiggleZ data.

  4. Interacting dark energy in the early 2020s: a promising solution to the $H_0$ and cosmic shear tensions

    astro-ph.CO 2019-08 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    An interacting dark energy model with coupling proportional to the dark energy density alleviates the H0 and S8 tensions in Planck 2018 data but is not preferred once BAO and supernova data are included.

  5. Resolving Hubble Tension with Quintom Dark Energy Model

    gr-qc 2019-08 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    A small negative-density component with equation of state 1/3≤w≤1 can lift H0 from 67.4 to about 74, but the coupled quintom model realizing it either misses the CMB peak or gives H0=68.55.

  6. Late Time Dynamical Dark Energy and the CMB-Distance Ladder Tension

    astro-ph.CO 2026-07 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

    The SNIa absolute-magnitude tension between the distance ladder (−19.204) and CMB+ΛCDM (−19.430) is independent of late-time expansion history, and DESI's w0–wa dark-energy hints shift H0 by only ~0.3–0.4 km/s/Mpc.

  7. Is Phantom Divide Crossing in General Relativity Completely Impossible? Shortcomings in canonical and minimally coupled scalar field and Possible Solutions in $k$-essence Models

    gr-qc 2026-01 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

    Phantom-to-quintessence crossing is impossible for a canonical scalar field, but can be engineered in finely-tuned k-essence theories where ghost instabilities are suppressed by a chosen kinetic coefficient.

  8. Cosmology With Low-Redshift Observations: No Signal For New Physics

    astro-ph.CO 2019-08 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

    Combining SN, BAO, lensing, cosmic chronometer, and growth data, the authors find ΛCDM remains the best dark energy model, with H0 and S8 consistent with most early and late universe probes within 2σ.

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