Thursday, October 27, 2011

1104.2874 (B. L. Lago et al.)

Type Ia supernova parameter estimation: a comparison of two approaches using current datasets    [PDF]

B. L. Lago, M. O. Calvão, S. E. Jorás, R. R. R. Reis, I. Waga, R. Giostri
By using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) first year type Ia supernova (SN Ia) compilation, we compare two different approaches (traditional \chi^2 and complete likelihood) to determine parameter constraints when the magnitude dispersion is to be estimated as well. We consider cosmological constant + Cold Dark Matter (\Lambda CDM) and spatially flat, constant w Dark Energy + Cold Dark Matter (FwCDM) cosmological models and show that, for current data, there is a small difference in the best fit values and $\sim$ 30% difference in confidence contour areas in case the MLCS2k2 light-curve fitter is adopted. For the SALT2 light-curve fitter the differences are less significant ($\lesssim$ 13% difference in areas). In both cases the likelihood approach gives more restrictive constraints. We argue for the importance of using the complete likelihood instead of the \chi^2 approach when dealing with parameters in the expression for the variance.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1104.2874

No comments:

Post a Comment