- Collaboration, SNAP
- Aldering, G
- Althouse, W
- Amanullah, R
- Annis, J
- Astier, P
- Baltay, C
- Barrelet, E
- Basa, S
- Bebek, C
- Bergstrom, L
- Bernstein, G
- Bester, M
- Bigelow, B
- Blandford, R
- Bohlin, R
- Bonissent, A
- Bower, C
- Brown, M
- Campbell, M
- Carithers, W
- Commins, E
- Craig, W
- Day, C
- DeJongh, F
- Deustua, S
- Diehl, T
- Dodelson, S
- Ealet, A
- Ellis, R
- Emmet, W
- Fouchez, D
- Frieman, J
- Fruchter, A
- Gerdes, D
- Gladney, L
- Goldhaber, G
- Goobar, A
- Groom, D
- Heetderks, H
- Hoff, M
- Holland, S
- Huffer, M
- Hui, L
- Huterer, D
- Jain, B
- Jelinsky, P
- Karcher, A
- Kent, S
- Kahn, S
- Kim, A
- Kolbe, W
- Krieger, B
- Kushner, G
- Kuznetsova, N
- Lafever, R
- Lamoureux, J
- Lampton, M
- Fevre, O Le
- Levi, M
- Limon, P
- Lin, H
- Linder, E
- Loken, S
- Lorenzon, W
- Malina, R
- Marriner, J
- Marshall, P
- Massey, R
- Mazure, A
- McKay, T
- McKee, S
- Miquel, R
- Morgan, N
- Mortsell, E
- Mostek, N
- Mufson, S
- Musser, J
- Nugent, P
- Oluseyi, H
- Pain, R
- Palaio, N
- Pankow, D
- Peoples, J
- Perlmutter, S
- Prieto, E
- Rabinowitz, D
- Refregier, A
- Rhodes, J
- Roe, N
- Rusin, D
- Scarpine, V
- Schubnell, M
- Sholl, M
- Smadja, G
- Smith, RM
- Smoot, G
- Snyder, J
- Spadafora, A
- Stebbins, A
- Stoughton, C
- Szymkowiak, A
- Tarle, G
- Taylor, K
- Tilquin, A
- Tomasch, A
- Tucker, D
- Vincent, D
- Lippe, H von der
- Walder, J-P
- Wang, G
- Wester, W
- et al.
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)