Summary: | I present an overview of the latest results from the SH0ES project, which obtained homogeneous Hubble Space Telescope (HST) photometry in the optical and near-infrared for ∼ 3500 and ∼ 2300 Cepheids, respectively, across 19 supernova hosts and 4 calibrators to determine the value of H0 with a total uncertainty of 2.4%.
I discuss the current 3.4σ “tension” between this local measurement and predictions of H0 based on observations of the CMB and the assumption of “standard” ΛCDM. I review ongoing efforts to reach σ(H0) = 1%, including recent advances on the absolute calibration of Milky Way Cepheid period-luminosity relations (PLRs) using a novel astrometric technique with HST.
Lastly, I highlight recent results from another collaboration on the development of new statistical techniques to detect, classify and phase extragalactic Miras using noisy and sparsely-sampled observations. I present preliminary Mira PLRs at various wavelengths based on the application of these techniques to a survey of M33.
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