Supernova / Acceleration Probe: A Satellite Experiment to Study the Nature of the Dark Energy

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)

40 pages, 18 figures, submitted to PASP, http://snap.lbl.gov

Cited by in corpus (17)

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• The Ages of Type Ia Supernova Progenitors
• Evidence for short-lived SN Ia progenitors
• Constraints on cosmological parameters in power-law cosmology
• Testing the Cosmological Constant as a Candidate for Dark Energy
• The signature of dark energy perturbations in galaxy cluster surveys
• Radiation Tolerance of Fully-Depleted P-Channel CCDs Designed for the SNAP Satellite
• Cosmography and large scale structure by f(R) gravity: new results
• Direct Observation of Cosmic Strings via their Strong Gravitational Lensing Effect: I. Predictions for High Resolution Imaging Surveys
• Astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics with compact binary coalescence and the Einstein Telescope
• Direct reconstruction of dynamical dark energy from observational Hubble parameter data
• Reducing Zero-point Systematics in Dark Energy Supernova Experiments
• Color Gradients in Galaxies Out to z~3: Dependence on Galaxy Properties
• Long-wavelength gravitational waves and cosmic acceleration
• Image Slicer Performances from a Demonstrator for the SNAP/JDEM Mission - Part I: Wavelength Accuracy