Journal article

Near-infrared observations of Type Ia supernovae: the best known standard candle for cosmology

RL Barone-Nugent, C Lidman, JSB Wyithe, J Mould, DA Howell, IM Hook, M Sullivan, PE Nugent, I Arcavi, SB Cenko, J Cooke, A Gal-Yam, EY Hsiao, MM Kasliwal, K Maguire, E Ofek, D Poznanski, D Xu

MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY | WILEY-BLACKWELL | Published : 2012

Abstract

We present an analysis of the Hubble diagram for 12 normal Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) observed in the near-infrared (NIR) J and H bands. We select SNe exclusively from the redshift range 0.03 < z < 0.09 to reduce uncertainties coming from peculiar velocities while remaining in a cosmologically well-understood region. All of the SNe in our sample exhibit no spectral or B-band light-curve peculiarities and lie in the B-band stretch range of 0.8-1.15. Our results suggest that SNe Ia observed in the NIR are the best known standard candles. We fit previously determined NIR light-curve templates to new high-precision data to derive peak magnitudes and to determine the scatter about the Hubble lin..

View full abstract

Grants

Awarded by ESO VLT


Awarded by Gemini Observatory


Awarded by Australian Research Council


Awarded by Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics


Awarded by NASA/Swift


Awarded by NSF


Awarded by Science and Technology Facilities Council


Awarded by Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien


Awarded by Division Of Astronomical Sciences


Awarded by STFC


Funding Acknowledgements

This work is based on data collected at the ESO VLT (programme number 083.A-0480) and observations obtained at the Gemini Observatory (programme numbers GN2010A-Q-16, GN2010B-Q-17, GN2011A-Q-11 and GN-2011B-Q-21), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under a cooperative agreement with the NSF on behalf of the Gemini partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), the Science and Technology Facilities Council (United Kingdom), the National Research Council (Canada), CONICYT (Chile), the Australian Research Council (Australia), Ministrio da Cincia, Tecnologia e Inovao (Brazil) and Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnologa e Innovacin Productiva (Argentina). CL is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (project number FT0992259). This research was conducted by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (project number CE110001020). MS acknowledges support from the Royal Society. The Liverpool Telescope is operated on the island of La Palma by Liverpool John Moores University in the Spanish Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias with financial support from the UK Science and Technology Facilities Council. This publication has been made possible by the participation of more than 10 000 volunteers in the Galaxy Zoo Supernovae project, http://supernova.galaxyzoo.org/authors. AG-Y acknowledges support by ISF, BSF, GIF and Minerva grants, an ARCHES award and the Lord Sieff of Brimpton Fund. SBC acknowledges generous financial assistance from Gary & Cynthia Bengier, the Richard & Rhoda Goldman Fund, NASA/Swift grants NNX10AI21G and GO-7100028, the TABASGO Foundation and NSF grant AST-0908886. MMK acknowledges generous support from the Hubble Fellowship and Carnegie-Princeton Fellowship.