Cosmology in the Local Volume with Hawai'i Supernova Flows

The origin and evolution of the Universe on the largest scales is one of the most profound questions in astrophysics today. A team of scientists at the University of Hawai'i will continue and substantially expand the Hawai‘i Supernova Flows survey. They will use than 3,000 new Type Ia supernovae to map the largest structures in the Universe to 300 Mpc, tripling the volume currently surveyed.

The survey will enable them to put strong constrains on the expansion of the universe (H0) and the growth of large-scale structure over time. The results of this work will be made accessible to the public through videos, interactive models, and virtual reality. In addition, the team is committed to increasing education and engagement opportunities in Hawai’i by 1) enabling stronger connections to high school students via HI STAR, 2) connecting Maunakea telescopes to undergraduate courses at UH Hilo on Hawai i island, and 3) providing impactful internship opportunities for talented Hawai‘i undergraduates.

The Hawai‘i Supernova Flows survey currently combines high-cadence optical light curves from ATLAS with near-infrared (NIR) light curves from UKIRT in the North. The proposed work will add ATLAS and LSST in the South for full-sky coverage. The primary goal of this proposal is to map the largest structures in the Universe to 300 Mpc, tripling the volume currently surveyed.

This work will compliment and extend the Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) by building a low-redshift sample where LSST photometric non-linearity or saturation is a factor.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.