Lawrence M Krauss et al 2007 New J. Phys. 9 141 doi:10.1088/1367-2630/9/5/141
Dark energy, a cosmological constant, and type Ia supernovae
Focus on Dark EnergyLawrence M Krauss1, Katherine Jones-Smith1 and Dragan Huterer2
Show affiliationsPart of Focus on Dark Energy
We focus on uncertainties in supernova measurements, in particular of individual magnitudes and redshifts, to review to what extent supernovae measurements of the expansion history of the universe are likely to allow us to constrain a possibly redshift-dependent equation of state of dark energy, w(z). We focus in particular on the central question of how well one might rule out the possibility of a cosmological constant w = −1. We argue that it is unlikely that we will be able to significantly reduce the uncertainty in the determination of w beyond its present bounds, without significant improvements in our ability to measure the cosmic distance scale as a function of redshift. Thus, unless the dark energy significantly deviates from w(z) = −1 at some redshift, very stringent control of the statistical and systematic errors will be necessary to have a realistic hope of empirically distinguishing exotic dark energy from a cosmological constant.
- PACS
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98.62.Py Distances, redshifts, radial velocities; spatial distribution of galaxies
95.30.Tg Thermodynamic processes, conduction, convection, equations of state
- Subjects
- Dates
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Issue 5 (2007)
Received 29 January 2007
Published 21 May 2007
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Dark energy, a cosmological constant, and type Ia supernovae
Lawrence M Krauss et al 2007 New J. Phys. 9 141
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