ASPCS
 
Back to Volume
Paper: SNLS -- The Supernova Legacy Survey
Volume: 339, Observing Dark Energy
Page: 60
Authors: Pritchet, C.J.; SNLS Collaboration, the
Abstract: Type Ia supernovae (SNeIa) provide direct evidence for an accelerating Universe, and for the existence of "dark energy" driving this expansion. The Supernova Legacy Survey (SNLS) will deliver many hundreds of SNIa detections, and well-sampled g′r′i′z′ light curves, over the next 5 years. Using these data, we will obtain a precise measurement of the cosmological parameters (ΩmassΛ); our goal is to determine the cosmological equation of state parameter w to a precision better than ±0.10, and hence test theories for the origin of the universal acceleration.

SNLS uses the CFHT MegaCam imager (400 Megapixels, 1 deg2) to image four fields around the sky in four filters, with typical time sampling of 3—4 nights. A total of 202 nights of CFHT time has been allocated over the next 5 years for these observations; a large program of followup spectroscopy is now underway at VLT, Gemini, Keck, and Magellan.

SNLS has been running since August 2003. There now exist about 330 reliable SN detections with excellent light curves out to beyond redshift 0.9, of which about 80 have been spectroscopically identified as Type Ia's. See http://www.cfht.hawaii.edu/SNLS for up-to-the-minute information on the latest SN discoveries.

Back to Volume