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The three-rung distance ladder, which calibrates Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) through stellar distances linked to geometric measurements, provides the highest precision direct measurement of the Hubble constant. In light of the Hubble tension, it is important to test the individual components of the distance ladder. For this purpose, we report a measurement of the Hubble constant from 35 extragalactic Cepheid hosts measured by the SH0ES team, using their distances and redshifts at cz ≤ 3300 km sâˆ'1, instead of any more distant SNe Ia, to measure the Hubble flow. The Cepheid distances are calibrated geometrically in the Milky Way, NGC 4258, and the Large Magellanic Cloud. Peculiar velocities are a significant source of systematic uncertainty at z ∼ 0.01, and we present a formalism for both mitigating and quantifying their effects, making use of external reconstructions of the density and velocity fields in the nearby universe. We identify a significant source of uncertainty originating from different assumptions about the selection criteria of this sample, whether distance or redshift limited, as it was assembled over three decades. Modeling these assumptions yields central values ranging from H 0 = 71.7 to 76.4 km sâˆ'1 Mpcâˆ'1. Combining the four best-fitting selection models yields H 0 = 72.9 âˆ' 2.2 + 2.4 as a fiducial result, at 2.4 σ tension with Planck. While SNe Ia are essential for a precise measurement of H 0, unknown systematics in these supernovae are unlikely to be the source of the Hubble tension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tip of the red giant branch (TRGB) is a standard candle that can be used to help refine the determination of the Hubble constant. Gaia Data Release 3 (DR3) provides synthetic photometry constructed from low-resolution BP/RP spectra for Milky Way field stars that can be used to directly calibrate the luminosity of the TRGB in the Johnson–Cousins I band, where the TRGB is least sensitive to metallicity. We calibrate the TRGB luminosity using a two-dimensional maximum likelihood algorithm with field stars and Gaia synthetic photometry and parallaxes. For a high-contrast and low-contrast break (characterized by the values of the contrast parameter R or the magnitude of the break β), we find M TRGB I = −4.02 and −3.92 mag respectively, or a midpoint of −3.970 − 0.024 + 0.042 (sys) ± 0.062 (stat) mag. This measurement improves upon the TRGB measurement from Li et al., as the higher precision photometry based on Gaia DR3 allows us to constrain two additional free parameters of the luminosity function. We also investigate the possibility of using Gaia DR3 synthetic photometry to calibrate the TRGB luminosity with ω Centauri, but find evidence of blending within the inner region for cluster member photometry that precludes accurate calibration with Gaia DR3 photometry. We instead provide an updated TRGB measurement of m TRGB I = 9.82 ± 0.04 mag in ω Centauri using ground-based photometry from the most recent version of the database described in Stetson et al., which gives M TRGB I = −3.97 ± 0.04 (stat) ± 0.10 (sys) mag when tied to the Gaia EDR3 parallax distance from the consensus of Vasiliev & Baumgardt, Soltis et al., and Maíz Apellániz. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]