Opportunities for future supernova studies of cosmic acceleration

Aug, 2000
4 pages
Published in:
  • Phys.Rev.Lett. 86 (2001) 1939-1942
e-Print:

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Abstract: (arXiv)
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 can be distinguished with a fit to the effective pressure-to-density ratio, ww, of this energy. More models can be distinguished when the effective slope, dw/dzdw/dz, of a changing ww is also fit, but only if our knowledge of the current mass density, Ωm\Omega_m, is improved. We investigate the use of ``fitting functions'' to interpret luminosity distance data from supernova searches, and argue in favor of a particular preferred method, which we use in our analysis.