Measuring Cosmic acceleration

with Type Ia Supernovae

Alex Pags
Ahmad Mel
April 2015
Cover credits to www.astroart.org

Introduction & Motivation

Big Bang is the prevailing theory about the Universe origin, in
agreement with the expansion of the Universe, proposed by
Georges Lematre (1927) and observed by Edwin Hubble
(1929), and the discovery of the CMB radiation.
Before 1990s, expansion was supposed to stop in a future,
ending in a big gravitational collapse (Big Crunch) or an steady
Universe (Big Freeze), depending on the total density.
In 1998 Saul Perlmutter from the Supernova Cosmology
project, and Adam Riess & Brian P. Schmidt from the High-Z
Supernova Search Team discovered an unexpected
acceleration of the expansion by measuring distant type Ia
supernovae.

Evidence for acceleration expansion

At small redshift (z < 0.1)
distance-redshift relation is
almost linearly due to
Hubbles Law:

At large distances, since

expansion rate has change
over time, this relation
deviates from linearity,
resulting in a larger lighttravel time

A Supernova with a Z redshift

measured implies it explode
when the Universe was a(t)
times its present size.
1
=
1+
Riess found that distances to
high redshift supernovae
were larger than expected for
a decelerating Universe.

Type Ia Supernovae
A supernova consist in the explosion of a stellar remnant.
Type Ia supernovae take place in binary systems, with two
stars orbiting one another. When one of the stars ends its life
becomes a white dwarf. Then this accretes matter from the
companion until the Chandrasekhar limit is reached and WD
collapse. Before this happens, temperature and density
increases inside the core, so carbon ignition starts and the
high amount of energy released unbind the outer layers in
this supernova explosion.
Because supernovae are so luminous, their brightness are of
the same order to the whole galaxy and they can be observed
at faraway distances.

Since all Type Ia Supernovae have a similar mass and similar

composition, they all present a characteristic light curve and
spectrum after the explosion, with an extremely consistent
peak luminosity.
This luminosity is generated by the radioactive decay of
heavy elements (nickel-56 through cobalt-56 to iron-56).
They also characterize by showing a strong ionized silicon
absorption line.
All this characteristics allow them to be used as standard
candles to measure high distances to their host galaxies.
Combining its photometry with the cosmological models we
can study the expansion of the Universe.

Corrections and systematics

Some corrections and calibrations need to be carried out:
- Color correction: extinction from dust in ISM (higher
beyond z 1) and intrinsic relation between color and
luminosity.
- Host galaxy properties: SNe Ia from early-type galaxies are
brighter than SNe Ia from galaxies of later types (Hicken et al.
2009c).

Early type galaxies contain significantly less dust, so

separating SNe Ia offers a way to study the intrinsic
component and the relative contribution of dust in a sample.

SNe Ia from low redshift galaxies (most of them corresponding

to massive galaxies) have brighter absolute magnitudes. Then
a proper host mass is determined adopting a probabilistic
approach.
Supernovae lightcurves are fitted by three parameters: an
overall normalization to the spectral energy distribution, the
deviation from lightcurve shape, and the deviation from the
mean SN Ia B-V colour .
This parameters and integrated B-band flux are combined with
the host mass to form the distance modulus.

= + 1 + <

Reproducing the Hubble diagram

We plot the SNe data from Union 2.1 set representing the
redshift and distance modulus for each supernova Ia. Then
we fit our plot by a theoretical function .
Distance modulus can be defined as:
= = 5 log + 25
Where is the luminosity distance, defined as:

()
=
= (1 + )
()
As we assume a flat Universe, () is the comoving distance.

And the comoving distance to a given redshift is:

=
0

+ + 2 + 4

For a Universe without curvature is 0, whereas we

neglect the term since is only important in the very
early Universe. Then we have only one free parameter:

=
0

(1 )(1 + )3 +

Taking h = 0.7 we have obtained 0.75 & 0.25

Can we measure cosmic acceleration?

Cosmic acceleration can be expressed in terms of the
deceleration parameter, defined as:

= (1 + 3)

4()
3 2 ()

We consider (a) as the total density with =

and analogous expressions for the other cosmological

parameters at a given age, and also the different values of
, which are (in the CDM cosmology model):
= 0 for matter

&

= 1 for dark energy

Finally, by the definition of H(a):

2 = 02 3 + 4 + 2 +
We can determine which is the deceleration parameter
nowadays using the current values of the cosmological
parameters. For our flat Universe we have:
1
1
0 = =
1 3
2
2
With our we obtain q -0.625
As q is the deceleration parameter, a negative value
means a positive acceleration.

Can we measure H?
H is the Hubble constant parameter nowadays. Hubble
parameter H relates the velocity of the Universe
expansion at a given distance. So this parameter can be
determined by a linear regression if radial velocities
(redshift) and distances of a sample of objects are known.

Because H is not constant, its current value needs to be

found out considering only small redshift objects.

From the Union 2.1 sample and considering distances up

to z = 0.1 we obtain as the Hubble constant:
H = 73.2 4.8 km/s/Mpc

The most accepted

value nowadays is
H = 100h km/s/Mpc
H = 72 8 km/s/Mpc

Can we measure (DE equation of state)?

If we consider a CDM model, then can be different to -1
for the dark energy. So the Hubble parameter becomes:

2 = 02 3 + 4 + 2 + 3(1+)
Cosmological parameters can be also measured by the
anisotropies of the CMB temperatures and the baryon
acoustic oscillations (BAO), contained in the CMB and in the
galaxies distribution, which allow to constrain factor and
also in a curved Universe.
If we know H, then we can estimate , whose value is usually
around -1 (Suzuki et al. 2011).

Do peculiar velocities alter these results?

Some galaxies may have peculiar movement between them,
what implies a peculiar velocity which alters the observed
redshift:
= + +
1 + = (1 + )(1 + )
These peculiar velocities are small comparing to light speed
and can be considered as random noise in the Hubbles Law.
They can be both positive or negative and their mean value
tends to be < > = 0 for many measurements.

Do redshift errors alter the results?

From the Hubble diagram

we have

Assuming a flat Universe:

= 0.705 0.043
(Suzuki et al. 2011).
At small redshifts:
dz/d is small
good precision required
(0.005 0.01)
Fortunately, spectra are
easier to detect

At high redshifts:
dz/d is large
Redshift error is not so significant.

Conclusions
Type Ia Supernovae can be used as standard candles as a tool
to measure the Universe expansion and other cosmological
parameters.
Dark energy is the dominant type of matter in the current
Universe ( 0.75).
The cosmic expansion is accelerating nowadays (q < 0).
At small redshifts we can estimate the Hubbles constant by
the linear Hubbles Law.
Peculiar velocities have very small effect on the observed
redshift.
Redshift measurement precision is more important at low
redshifts.