Michael Wood-Vasey
(University of Pittsburgh)
SweetSpot: Near-Infrared Observations of Type Ia Supernovae in the Nearby Hubble Flow
I will introduce and present some results from "SweetSpot" -- a three-year NOAO Survey program (12B-0500) with WIYN+WHIRC to observe 150 Type Ia supernovae in the nearby Hubble flow (z~0.05) in the near-infrared (NIR) to obtain reliable distances free from peculiar-velocity confusion and the uncertainties of dust.
The goals of our SweetSpot program include:
(1) quantitatively testing the standardness of of SNeIa in the restframe NIR;
(2) providing insights about the color evolution and intrinsic properties of SNeIa and their host galaxies; and
(3) establishing a well-calibrated low-redshift anchor for future NIR supernova surveys from JWST, Euclid, and WFIRST.