Dark siren cross-correlations and the sensitivity of $H_0$ to methodological choices

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Main Authors: Cross-Parkin, Madeline L., Howlett, Cullan, Giani, Leonardo, Blake, Chris, Davis, Tamara M.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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author Cross-Parkin, Madeline L.
Howlett, Cullan
Giani, Leonardo
Blake, Chris
Davis, Tamara M.
author_facet Cross-Parkin, Madeline L.
Howlett, Cullan
Giani, Leonardo
Blake, Chris
Davis, Tamara M.
contents Gravitational wave sources act as absolute distance indicators, making them powerful probes of the present-day expansion rate of the Universe, $H_0$. The cross-correlation method combines gravitational wave events with galaxy catalogues to constrain cosmological parameters through their shared large-scale structure. In this work, we investigate how key methodological choices -- including covariance treatment, bias parametrisation for galaxies and gravitational wave events, and distance and redshift binning width -- affect the inferred value of $H_0$. We also study catalogue incompleteness, showing that selection effects can be incorporated directly into the theoretical prediction, without the need to model the missing population explicitly, a key advantage over the standard galaxy catalogue approach. Our results indicate that, with appropriate modelling choices and a sufficiently large sample of precise gravitational wave events, the systematic biases considered here can be effectively mitigated, highlighting the potential of the cross-correlation method for future dark siren precision cosmology.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_06783
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Dark siren cross-correlations and the sensitivity of $H_0$ to methodological choices
Cross-Parkin, Madeline L.
Howlett, Cullan
Giani, Leonardo
Blake, Chris
Davis, Tamara M.
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Gravitational wave sources act as absolute distance indicators, making them powerful probes of the present-day expansion rate of the Universe, $H_0$. The cross-correlation method combines gravitational wave events with galaxy catalogues to constrain cosmological parameters through their shared large-scale structure. In this work, we investigate how key methodological choices -- including covariance treatment, bias parametrisation for galaxies and gravitational wave events, and distance and redshift binning width -- affect the inferred value of $H_0$. We also study catalogue incompleteness, showing that selection effects can be incorporated directly into the theoretical prediction, without the need to model the missing population explicitly, a key advantage over the standard galaxy catalogue approach. Our results indicate that, with appropriate modelling choices and a sufficiently large sample of precise gravitational wave events, the systematic biases considered here can be effectively mitigated, highlighting the potential of the cross-correlation method for future dark siren precision cosmology.
title Dark siren cross-correlations and the sensitivity of $H_0$ to methodological choices
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.06783