[78.09] ESSENCE: Constraining Properties of the Dark Energy with Supernovae

AAS 201st Meeting, January, 2003
Session 78. NOAO Survey Programs
Poster, Wednesday, January 8, 2003, 9:20am-6:30pm, Exhibit Hall AB

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[78.09] ESSENCE: Constraining Properties of the Dark Energy with Supernovae

P.M. Garnavich, S.T. Holland (Notre Dame), B.P. Schmidt (MSSSO), K. Krisciunas, R.C. Smith, N.B. Suntzeff (CTIO), A. Becker, A. Miceli, G. Miknaitis, A. Rest, C. Stubbs (U. Washington), A.V. Filippenko, S. Jha, W. Li (UC Berkeley), P. Challis, R.P. Kirshner, T. Matheson (CfA), B. Barris, J.L. Tonry (U. Hawaii), A. G. Riess (STScI), B. Leibundgut, J. Sollerman, J. Spyromilio (ESO), A. Clocchiatti (PUC), S. Pompea (NOAO), High-Z Supernova Search Team

The Universe is apparently dominated by a mysterious dark energy which is driving an accelerating expansion. Evidence for the acceleration was first seen in the faintness of high-redshift Type-Ia supernovae (SN) which are superb distance indicators, providing a relative accuracy of 7%. Type-Ia SN have already constrained the nature of the dark energy: cosmic acceleration requires that the mysterious energy have a negative pressure comparable in amplitude to its energy density. The ratio of the pressure to energy density is called the Equation of State (ES) or w and refining the estimate of w provides the best way to differentiate between proliferating models of the dark energy. A vacuum energy or cosmological constant would have a fixed ES of exactly -1, while dynamical theories such has a quintessence or k-essence have a time-varying ES with w>-1. More exotic theories have been developed where the ES can even be less than -1.

Project ESSENCE will place tight limits on the value of the cosmic equation of state. Using the CTIO 4m telescope and large-field Mosaic imager, we will discover and study more than 200 Type~Ia SN at redshifts between 0.2

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