The Past, Present, and Future of Supernova Cosmology

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• Robert Kirshner, Harvard
• Thursday 21 October 2010, 16:30-17:30
• Sackler Lecture Theatre, IoA (tea at 4:00 pm).

If you have a question about this talk, please contact scott chapman.

Supernovae have been developed into a powerful tool for cosmological distance measurements. In the (recent) past, supernovae showed that we live in an accelerating universe. In the present supernovae are a key element in constraining the properties of dark energy. While the present data are consistent with a cosmological constant, today’s constraints are not very rigorous. As a community, we are beginning to learn where the systematic problems arise in tightening those constraints and improving our knowledge. I’ll review some of the problems we have encountered with dust absorption and I will show some promising developments using observations in the near-infrared that may mitigate these difficulties. The future will not be as easy as the past, but the conclusion of programs like ESSENCE , Supernova Legacy Survey and the Sloan Supernova Survey plus the Palomar Transient Factory, Pan-STARRS, the Dark Energy Survey, and WFIRST all promise real progress in the years ahead.

This talk is part of the Institute of Astronomy Colloquia series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Cambridge Astronomy Talks
• Combined External Astrophysics Talks DAMTP
• Cosmology lists
• Cosmology, Astrophysics and General Relativity
• Institute of Astronomy Colloquia
• Institute of Astronomy Talk Lists
• Kavli Institute for Cosmology Talk Lists
• Priscilla
• Sackler Lecture Theatre, IoA (tea at 4:00 pm)

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