The Tip of the Red Giant Branch Distances to Type Ia Supernova Host Galaxies. V. NGC 3021, NGC 3370, and NGC 1309 and the value of the Hubble Constant (1702.01118v1)

Abstract: We present final results of a program for the determination of the Hubble constant based on the calibration of the Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) using the Tip of the Red Giant Branch (TRGB). We report TRGB distances to three SN Ia host galaxies, NGC 3021, NGC 3370, and NGC 1309. We obtain F555W and F814W photometry of resolved stars from the archival Hubble Space Telescope data. Luminosity functions of red giant stars in the outer regions of these galaxies show the TRGB to be at I ~ QT = 28.2 ~ 28.5 mag. From these TRGB magnitudes and the revised TRGB calibration based on two distance anchors (NGC 4258 and the LMC) in Jang&Lee 2017, we derive the distances: (m-M)0 = 32.178 +- 0.033 for NGC 3021, 32.253 +- 0.041 for NGC 3370, and 32.471 +- 0.040 for NGC 1309. We update our previous results on the TRGB distances to five SN Ia host galaxies using the revised TRGB calibration. By combining the TRGB distance estimates to SN Ia host galaxies in this study with the SN Ia calibration provided by Riess et al. 2011, we obtain a value of the Hubble constant: H0 = 71.66 +- 1.80 (random) +- 1.88 (systematic) km/s/Mpc (a 3.6% uncertainty including systematics) from all eight SNe, and H0 = 73.72 +- 2.03 +- 1.94 km/s/Mpc (a 3.8% uncertainty) from six low-reddened SNe. We present our best estimate, H0 = 71.17 +- 1.66 +- 1.87 km/s/Mpc (a 3.5% uncertainty) from six low-reddened SNe with the recent SN Ia calibration in Riess et al. 2016. This value is between those from the Cepheid calibrated SNe Ia and those from the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) analysis, lowering the Hubble tension.