English

Testing the Constancy of Type Ia Supernova Luminosities with Gaussian Process

Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics 2026-02-27 v1 Astrophysics of Galaxies Data Analysis, Statistics and Probability Methodology

Abstract

Type Ia supernovae (SNe~Ia) are central to studies of cosmic expansion, under the assumption that their absolute magnitude MBM_B does not evolve with redshift. Even small drifts in brightness can bias cosmological parameters such as H0H_0 and ww. Here we test this assumption using a non-parametric Gaussian Process (GP) reconstruction of the expansion history from cosmic chronometer H(z)H(z) data, which provides a model-independent baseline distance modulus, μGP(z)\mu_{\rm GP}(z). To propagate uncertainties, we draw Monte Carlo realizations of H(z)H(z) from the GP posterior and evaluate them on a Chebyshev grid, which improves numerical stability and quadrature accuracy. Supernova observations are then compared to this baseline through residuals, ΔMB(z)\Delta M_B(z), and their derivatives. Applying this method to Pantheon+ (1701 SNe~Ia) and DES 5YR (435 SNe~Ia), we find that SNe~Ia are consistent with being standard candles within 1σ1\sigma, though both datasets exhibit localized departures: near z1z \sim 1 in Pantheon+ and at z0.3z \sim 0.3--0.50.5 in DES. The presence of similar features in two independent surveys suggests they are not purely statistical. Our results point toward a possible non-monotonic luminosity evolution, likely reflecting different physical drivers at different epochs, and highlight the need for a deeper astrophysical understanding of SN~Ia populations.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.19494,
  title  = {Testing the Constancy of Type Ia Supernova Luminosities with Gaussian Process},
  author = {Akshay Rana},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.19494},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

14 Pages, 04 Figures, Under review

R2 v1 2026-07-01T05:52:59.572Z