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R. A. Scalzo, G. Aldering, B. C. Lee, S. Loken, P. Nugent, S. Perlmutter, J. Siegrist, R. C. Thomas, L. Wang, W. M. Wood-Vasey (LBNL), G. Adam, R. Bacon, C. Bonnaud, L. Capoani, D. Dubet, F. Henault, B. Lantz, J.-P. Lemonnier, A. Pecontal, E. Pecontal (CRAL, Lyon), N. Blanc, G. Boudoul, S. Bongard, A. Castera, Y. Copin, E. Gangler, G. Smadja (IPNL, Lyon), R. Kessler (University of Chicago), P. Antilogus, P. Astier, E. Berrelet, G. Garavini, S. Gilles, L.-A. Guevara, D. Imbault, C, Juramy, R. Pain, R. Taillet, D. Vincent (LPHNE, Paris), C. Baltay, Rabinovitz D., J. Snyder (Yale), Nearby Supernova Factory Collaboration
The Nearby Supernova Factory (SNfactory) is a project to discover, and study in detail, approximately 300 type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) in the redshift range 0.03 < z < 0.08. Supernova candidates are found by searching wide-field imaging data from the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) project at JPL, and from the Palomar Consortium (Yale/JPL/Caltech); this ultimately produces a sample of supernovae which is unbiased with respect to host galaxy type. Follow-up observations are performed with the Supernova Integral Field Spectrograph (SNIFS), a novel instrument installed on the University of Hawaii 2.2-meter telescope on Mauna Kea and commissioned in April 2004. By providing time series of flux-calibrated optical spectra taken every two to three nights for each supernova, the SNfactory data set will dramatically improve our understanding of the physics of SNe Ia and reduce the uncertainties in their use as cosmological standard candles. SNIFS observations have been conducted remotely from the United States and France since June 2004, with increasing emphasis on scripting and automation for greater efficiency. This poster reviews the current status of SNIFS and of the SNfactory project and presents its first results after the commissioning of SNIFS.
Support for SNfactory is provided in the United States by the DOE Office of Science, the National Science Foundation through the High Performance Wireless Research and Education Network (HPWREN), the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics (KICP), and the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, and in France by the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) through the Institut National de Physique Nucleaire et de Physique des Particules (IN2P3), the Institut National des Sciences de l'Univers (INSU) and the Programme National de Cosmologie (PNC).
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.