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N. Regnault, G. Aldering, G. Blanc, A. Conley, T. Dahlen, S. Deustua, R. Ellis, X. Fan, G. Folatelli, B. Frye, G. Garavini, E. Gates, G. Goldhaber, B. Goldman, A. Goobar, D. Groom, D. Hardin, I. Hook, S. Kent, A. Kim, M. Kim, R. Knop, C. Lidman, J. Mendez, G. Miller, M. Moniez, A. Mourao, H. Newberg, S. Nobili, P. Nugent, R. Pain, O. Perdereau, S. Perlmutter, R. Quimby, J. Rich, G. Richards, P. Ruiz-Lapuente, B. Schaefer, N. Walton (The Supernova Cosmology Project, in association with the EROS, the Nearby Galaxies SN Survey, the Lick Observatory SN Search, and the Mt. Stromlo Abell Cluster SN Search Collaborations), Supernova Cosmology Project Collaboration
Type Ia supernovae (SNe~Ia) are powerful cosmological distance indicators and have been used for measuring cosmological parameters such as the Hubble constant, H0, and the mass density \Omegam and dark energy density \Omega\Lambda of the universe. These measurements rely on empirical correlations between absolute peak luminosities and other observables, like the postmaximum decline rate, and the color at maximum. Since the total number of well observed nearby Hubble flow SNe~Ia is still small, these correlations are not yet fully characterized.
In the Spring of 1999 the Supernova Cosmology Project undertook a nearby SN~Ia search in collaboration with groups around the world. This campaign was aimed at providing an independent set of high quality light curves and spectra, to further study SN~Ia properties, and fill the Hubble diagram at low redshift. 37 SNe were discovered, of which 19 were SNe~Ia near or before maximum light, in the redshift range z=0.002 -- 0.15. These supernovae were followed-up photometrically and spectroscopically, using 20 different telescopes with apertures from 1-m to 10-m.
We present the results of the very successful photometric follow-up. An average of 10 points was collected for each SN~Ia in the B, V, R and I bands. In addition, we were able to obtain 5 well measured U-lightcurves. With this dataset, we are studying the correlations between the magnitude at maximum, the decline rate and the color at maximum. These systematic studies play a key role in the cosmological measurements using high redshift SNe Ia.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: NRegnault@lbl.gov