Cosmology with VEILS: Building an Infrared SN Ia Hubble Diagram


Thursday, 10 January 2019 8 a.m. — 9 a.m. MST

AURA Lecture Hall

NOIRLab South Colloquia
TOMAS MULLER (University of Southhampton and NOAO South Visiting PhD Student)

Type Ia Supernovae (SNe Ia) have been studied for many years as standardisable candles for cosmological distance measurement. However, most of this research has been done at optical wavelengths, where extinction highly affects the SN light, perhaps setting a fundamental limit in the cosmological precision of these objects. Near-Infrared (NIR) wavelengths are less affected by extinction, in principle making these bands better suited for cosmology. The VISTA Extragalactic Infrared Legacy Survey (VEILS) will obtain NIR light curves of around 300 SNe Ia out to a redshift of 0.6 over the next three years. I will provide a summary of the current state of my research.