- Main
Supernova / Acceleration Probe: A Satellite Experiment to Study the Nature of the Dark Energy
- 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.
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)
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