The University of Southampton
University of Southampton Institutional Repository

Cosmology with superluminous supernovae

Cosmology with superluminous supernovae
Cosmology with superluminous supernovae
We predict cosmological constraints for forthcoming surveys using superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) as standardizable candles. Due to their high peak luminosity, these events can be observed to high redshift (z ? 3), opening up new possibilities to probe the Universe in the deceleration epoch. We describe our methodology for creating mock Hubble diagrams for the Dark Energy Survey (DES), the ‘Search Using DECam for Superluminous Supernovae’ (SUDSS) and a sample of SLSNe possible from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), exploring a range of standardization values for SLSNe. We include uncertainties due to gravitational lensing and marginalize over possible uncertainties in the magnitude scale of the observations (e.g. uncertain absolute peak magnitude, calibration errors). We find that the addition of only ?100 SLSNe from SUDSS to 3800 Type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) from DES can improve the constraints on w and ?m by at least 20 per cent (assuming a flat wCDM universe). Moreover, the combination of DES SNe Ia and 10 000 LSST-like SLSNe can measure ?m and w to 2 and 4 per cent, respectively. The real power of SLSNe becomes evident when we consider possible temporal variations in w(a), giving possible uncertainties of only 2, 5 and 14 per cent on ?m, w0 and wa, respectively, from the combination of DES SNe Ia, LSST-like SLSNe and Planck. These errors are competitive with predicted Euclid constraints, indicating a future role for SLSNe for probing the high-redshift Universe.
1365-2966
1700-1707
Scovacricchi, D.
25f6348f-abb4-4d86-80b0-7378f403f66e
Nichol, R.C.
0c9a8540-1f97-4fd7-bc77-e18db450e632
Bacon, D.
736d9827-a421-4658-98a1-080f711c0c1d
Sullivan, M.
2f31f9fa-8e79-4b35-98e2-0cb38f503850
Prajs, S.
84bb5d78-0e3f-4ce9-9dd2-de5479b03aaa
Scovacricchi, D.
25f6348f-abb4-4d86-80b0-7378f403f66e
Nichol, R.C.
0c9a8540-1f97-4fd7-bc77-e18db450e632
Bacon, D.
736d9827-a421-4658-98a1-080f711c0c1d
Sullivan, M.
2f31f9fa-8e79-4b35-98e2-0cb38f503850
Prajs, S.
84bb5d78-0e3f-4ce9-9dd2-de5479b03aaa

Scovacricchi, D., Nichol, R.C., Bacon, D., Sullivan, M. and Prajs, S. (2016) Cosmology with superluminous supernovae. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 456 (2), 1700-1707. (doi:10.1093/mnras/stv2752).

Record type: Article

Abstract

We predict cosmological constraints for forthcoming surveys using superluminous supernovae (SLSNe) as standardizable candles. Due to their high peak luminosity, these events can be observed to high redshift (z ? 3), opening up new possibilities to probe the Universe in the deceleration epoch. We describe our methodology for creating mock Hubble diagrams for the Dark Energy Survey (DES), the ‘Search Using DECam for Superluminous Supernovae’ (SUDSS) and a sample of SLSNe possible from the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), exploring a range of standardization values for SLSNe. We include uncertainties due to gravitational lensing and marginalize over possible uncertainties in the magnitude scale of the observations (e.g. uncertain absolute peak magnitude, calibration errors). We find that the addition of only ?100 SLSNe from SUDSS to 3800 Type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) from DES can improve the constraints on w and ?m by at least 20 per cent (assuming a flat wCDM universe). Moreover, the combination of DES SNe Ia and 10 000 LSST-like SLSNe can measure ?m and w to 2 and 4 per cent, respectively. The real power of SLSNe becomes evident when we consider possible temporal variations in w(a), giving possible uncertainties of only 2, 5 and 14 per cent on ?m, w0 and wa, respectively, from the combination of DES SNe Ia, LSST-like SLSNe and Planck. These errors are competitive with predicted Euclid constraints, indicating a future role for SLSNe for probing the high-redshift Universe.

Text
1511.06670v2.pdf - Accepted Manuscript
Download (1MB)

More information

Accepted/In Press date: 20 November 2015
e-pub ahead of print date: 24 December 2015
Published date: 21 February 2016
Organisations: Astronomy Group

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 394625
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/394625
ISSN: 1365-2966
PURE UUID: 31aac69d-8f72-45d2-a672-408a577559f5
ORCID for M. Sullivan: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-9053-4820

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 23 May 2016 08:06
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:45

Export record

Altmetrics

Contributors

Author: D. Scovacricchi
Author: R.C. Nichol
Author: D. Bacon
Author: M. Sullivan ORCID iD
Author: S. Prajs

Download statistics

Downloads from ePrints over the past year. Other digital versions may also be available to download e.g. from the publisher's website.

View more statistics

Atom RSS 1.0 RSS 2.0

Contact ePrints Soton: eprints@soton.ac.uk

ePrints Soton supports OAI 2.0 with a base URL of http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/cgi/oai2

This repository has been built using EPrints software, developed at the University of Southampton, but available to everyone to use.

We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website. If you continue without changing your settings, we will assume that you are happy to receive cookies on the University of Southampton website.

×