Cosmological constraints from measurements of type Ia supernovae discovered during the first 1.5 yr of the Pan-STARRS1 survey

We present grizP1 light curves of 146 spectroscopically confirmed Type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia; 0.03 < z < 0.65) discovered during the first 1.5 yr of the Pan-STARRS1 Medium Deep Survey. The Pan-STARRS1 natural photometric system is determined by a combination of on-site measurements of the instrument response function and observations of spectrophotometric standard stars. We find that the systematic uncertainties in the photometric system are currently 1.2% without accounting for the uncertainty in the Hubble Space Telescope Calspec definition of the AB system. A Hubble diagram is constructed with a subset of 113 out of 146 SNe Ia that pass our light curve quality cuts. The cosmological fit to 310 SNe Ia (113 PS1 SNe Ia + 222 light curves from 197 low-z SNe Ia), using only supernovae (SNe) and assuming a constant dark energy equation of state and flatness, yields w = -1.120+0.360-0.206(Stat)+0.2690.291(Sys). When combined with BAO+CMB(Planck)+H0, the analysis yields ΩM = 0.280+0.0130.012 and w = -1.166+0.072-0.069 including all identified systematics. The value of w is inconsistent with the cosmological constant value of -1 at the 2.3σ level. Tension endures after removing either the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) or the H0 constraint, though it is strongest when including the H0 constraint. If we include WMAP9 cosmic microwave background (CMB) constraints instead of those from Planck, we find w = -1.124+0.083-0.065, which diminishes the discord to <2σ. We cannot conclude whether the tension with flat ΛCDM is a feature of dark energy, new physics, or a combination of chance and systematic errors. The full Pan-STARRS1 SN sample with ∼three times as many SNe should provide more conclusive results.

Duke Scholars

Author Daniel M. Scolnic Physics