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W.M. Wood-Vasey, G. Aldering, A.D. Howell, P. Nugent, S. Perlmutter, R. Quimby (LBNL, Berkeley), P. Antilogus, G. Smadja (IPN, Lyon), R. Bacon, E. Pecontal, J.-P. Lemmonier, A. Pecontal, G. Adam, H. Courtois, Y. Copin (CRAL, Lyon), P. Astier, K. Schahmaneche, R. Pain (LPNHE/CNRS-IN2P3, Paris), J. Rich (DAPNIA, Saclay), Nearby Supernova Factory Collaboration
The Nearby Supernova Factory (SNfactory) is an international collaboration designed to lay the foundation for the next generation of cosmology experiments (such as SNAP) which will measure the expansion history of the Universe using Type~Ia supernovae (SNe~Ia). The SNfactory will discover and obtain frequent lightcurve spectrophotometry covering \lambda\lambda350--1000~nm for ~300 Type~Ia supernovae at the low-redshift end of the smooth Hubble flow. The SNfactory search capabilities and follow-up instrumentation are described; they include wide-field CCD imagers on two 1.2-m telescopes (via collaboration with the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking team at JPL), and a two-channel integral-field-unit optical spectrograph on the University of Hawaii 2.2-m telescope on Mauna Kea. In addition to ground-based follow-up, HST is being used to obtain UV coverage for a subsample of the Type~Ia supernovae.
Due to the quantity, quality, breadth of environments, and homogeneous nature of the SNfactory dataset, it will serve as the premier source of calibration of the SN~Ia width-brightness relation and the intrinsic SN~Ia colors used for K-correction and correction for extinction by host-galaxy dust. This dataset will also allow an extensive investigation of additional parameters which possibly influence the quality of Type~Ia supernovae as cosmological probes. The lowest redshift SNe~Ia from the SNfactory can be used to measure galaxy peculiar velocities and thereby constrain \OmegaM.
This work is funded in the United States by the Department of Energy Division of High Energy Physics, and in France by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique Institut National de Physique Nucléaire et de Physique des Particles and Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers.
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