Related papers: Seeing the Nature of the Accelerating Physics: It'…
The accelerating expansion of the Universe is one of the most surprising and potentially profound discoveries of modern cosmology. Measuring the acceleration well enough to meaningfully constrain interesting physical models requires…
The Supernova / Acceleration Probe (SNAP) is a proposed space-based experiment designed to study the dark energy and alternative explanations of the acceleration of the Universe's expansion by performing a series of complementary…
The SuperNova / Acceleration Probe (SNAP) is a space-based experiment to measure the expansion history of the Universe and study both its dark energy and the dark matter. The experiment is motivated by the startling discovery that the…
It has now been firmly established that the Universe is expanding at an accelerated rate, driven by a presently unknown form of dark energy that appears to dominate our Universe today. A dedicated satellite mission has been designed to…
The Supernova Acceleration Probe (SNAP) will use Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) as distance indicators to measure the effect of dark energy on the expansion history of the Universe. (SNAP's weak-lensing program is described in a companion…
The nature of dark energy is of such fundamental importance -- yet such a mystery -- that a dedicated dark energy experiment should be as comprehensive and powerfully incisive as possible. The Supernova/Acceleration Probe robustly controls…
The distance-redshift relation observed for supernovae has led to the discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating. A next generation experiment, the Supernova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP), can investigate the nature of the…
This talk presents a pedagogical discussion of how precision distance-redshift observations can map out the recent expansion history of the universe, including the present acceleration and the transition to matter dominated deceleration.…
The use of Type Ia supernovae as calibrated standard candles is one of the most powerful tools to study the expansion history of the universe and thereby its energy components. While the analysis of some ~50 supernovae at redshifts around…
A brief review is offered of the theoretical background concerning dark energy: what is required by observations, what sort of models are being considered, and how they fit into particle physics and gravitation. Contribution to the SNAP…
Discoveries in the last few years have revolutionized our knowledge of the universe and our ideas of its ultimate fate. Measurements of the expansion of the universe show that it is not slowing down under normal gravity but accelerating due…
SNAP is a candidate for the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM) that seeks to place constraints on the dark energy using two distinct methods. The first, Type Ia SN, is discussed in a companion white paper. The second method is weak…
We investigate the potential of a future supernova dataset, as might be obtained by the proposed SNAP satellite, to discriminate among different ``dark energy'' theories that describe an accelerating Universe. We find that many such models…
Weak lensing provides a direct measure of the distribution of mass in the universe, and is therefore a uniquely powerful probe of dark matter. Weak lensing can also be used to measure the twin phenomenon of dark energy, via its effect upon…
We study the potential impact of improved future supernovae data on our understanding of the dark energy problem. We carefully examine the relative utility of different fitting functions that can be used to parameterize the dark energy…
We explore the prospects for using future supernova observations to probe the dark energy. We focus on quintessence, an evolving scalar field that has been suggested as a candidate for the dark energy. After simulating the observations that…
The SuperNova/Acceleration Probe (SNAP) will measure precisely the cosmological expansion history over both the acceleration and deceleration epochs and thereby constrain the nature of the dark energy that dominates our universe today. The…
We present some useful ways to visualize the nature of dark energy and the effects of the accelerating expansion on cosmological quantities. Expansion probes such as Type Ia supernovae distances and growth probes such as weak gravitational…
A wide field space-based imaging telescope is necessary to fully exploit the technique of observing dark matter via weak gravitational lensing. This first paper in a three part series outlines the survey strategies and relevant instrumental…
Supernova experiments to characterize dark energy require a well designed low redshift program; we consider this for both ongoing/near term (e.g. Supernova Legacy Survey) and comprehensive future (e.g. SNAP) experiments. The derived…