Supernova / Acceleration Probe: A Satellite Experiment to Study the Nature of the Dark Energy
SNAP Collaboration, G. Aldering, W. Althouse, R. Amanullah, J. Annis, P. Astier, C. Baltay, E. Barrelet, S. Basa, C. Bebek, L. Bergstrom, G. Bernstein, M. Bester, B. Bigelow, R. Blandford, R. Bohlin, A. Bonissent, C. Bower, M. Brown, M. Campbell, W. Carithers, E. Commins, W. Craig, C. Day, F. DeJongh, S. Deustua, T. Diehl, S. Dodelson, A. Ealet, R. Ellis, W. Emmet, D. Fouchez, J. Frieman, A. Fruchter, D. Gerdes, L. Gladney, G. Goldhaber, A. Goobar, D. Groom, H. Heetderks, M. Hoff, S. Holland, M. Huffer, L. Hui, D. Huterer, B. Jain, P. Jelinsky, A. Karcher, S. Kent, S. Kahn, A. Kim, W. Kolbe, B. Krieger, G. Kushner, N. Kuznetsova, R. Lafever, J. Lamoureux, M. Lampton, O. Le Fevre, M. Levi, P. Limon, H. Lin, E. Linder, S. Loken, W. Lorenzon, R. Malina, J. Marriner, P. Marshall, R. Massey, A. Mazure, T. McKay, S. McKee, R. Miquel, N. Morgan, E. Mortsell, N. Mostek, S. Mufson, J. Musser, P. Nugent, H. Oluseyi, R. Pain, N. Palaio, D. Pankow, J. Peoples, S. Perlmutter, E. Prieto, D. Rabinowitz, A. Refregier, J. Rhodes, N. Roe, D. Rusin, V. Scarpine, M. Schubnell, M. Sholl, G. Smadja, R. M. Smith, G. Smoot, J. Snyder, A. Spadafora, A. Stebbins, C. Stoughton, A. Szymkowiak, G. Tarle, K. Taylor, A. Tilquin, A. Tomasch, D. Tucker, D. Vincent, H. von der Lippe, J-P. Walder, G. Wang, W. Wester
Abstract
The Supernova / Acceleration Probe (SNAP) is a proposed space-based experiment designed to study the dark energy and alternative explanations of the acceleration of the Universe's expansion by performing a series of complementary systematics-controlled measurements. We describe a self-consistent reference mission design for building a Type Ia supernova Hubble diagram and for performing a wide-area weak gravitational lensing study. A 2-m wide-field telescope feeds a focal plane consisting of a 0.7 square-degree imager tiled with equal areas of optical CCDs and near infrared sensors, and a high-efficiency low-resolution integral field spectrograph. The SNAP mission will obtain high-signal-to-noise calibrated light-curves and spectra for several thousand supernovae at redshifts between z=0.1 and 1.7. A wide-field survey covering one thousand square degrees resolves ~100 galaxies per square arcminute. If we assume we live in a cosmological-constant-dominated Universe, the matter density, dark energy density, and flatness of space can all be measured with SNAP supernova and weak-lensing measurements to a systematics-limited accuracy of 1%. For a flat universe, the density-to-pressure ratio of dark energy can be similarly measured to 5% for the present value w0 and ~0.1 for the time variation w'. The large survey area, depth, spatial resolution, time-sampling, and nine-band optical to NIR photometry will support additional independent and/or complementary dark-energy measurement approaches as well as a broad range of auxiliary science programs. (Abridged)
Create a lesson
Related papers
On binary pulsars and the force of gravity
Davor Palle
Tidal torques. A critical review of some techniques
Michael Efroimsky, James G. Williams
Dynamics of a Spherical Accretion Shock with Neutrino Heating and Alpha-Particle Recombination
Rodrigo Fernández, Christopher Thompson
Asymptotically FRW black holes
J. T. Firouzjaee, Reza Mansouri
Reaction of Accretion Disks to Abrupt Mass Loss During Binary Black Hole Merger
Sean M. O'Neill, M. Coleman Miller, Tamara Bogdanovic et al.
A Gamma-Ray Burst/Pulsar for Cosmic-Ray Positrons with a Dark Matter-like Spectrum
Kunihito Ioka