Verifying the use of supernovae as probes of the cosmic expansion

Richard Ellis, Mark Sullivan

Published 2000-11-20Version 1

We present preliminary results of a follow-up survey which aims to characterise in detail those galaxies which hosted Type Ia supernovae found by the Supernova Cosmology Project (SCP). Our survey has two components: Hubble Space Telescope imaging with STIS and Keck spectroscopy with ESI, the goal being to classify each host galaxy into one of three broad morphological/spectral classes and hence to investigate the dependence of supernovae properties on host galaxy type over a large range in redshift. Of particular interest is the supernova Hubble diagram characterised by host galaxy class which suggests that most of the scatter arises from those occurring in late-type irregulars. Supernovae hosted by (presumed dust-free) E/S0 galaxies closely follow the adopted SCP cosmological model. Although larger datasets are required, we cannot yet find any significant difference in the light curves of distant supernovae hosted in different galaxy types.