UNC-CH Physics and Astronomy Colloquium

Daniel Scolnic, University of Chicago

“Measuring Dark Energy with Supernovae and Kilonovae”

The next decade will be the golden age of cosmology with transients. In this talk, I will present new analyses of Type Ia Supernovae that mark the most precise measurement of dark energy to date. I will go over how this analysis ties together with the analysis of the local value of the Hubble constant, for which tension persists with the inferred value from the CMB – an exciting hint at possible departures from the standard cosmological model. I will then discuss the first measurements of the Hubble constant with kilonovae and gravitational waves. I will review the large amount of overlap between the issues that must be tackled for future progress using supernovae and kilonovae to measure cosmological parameters. Finally, I will discuss the roles that surveys like LSST and WFIRST will play and how we can harness the millions of transients discovered to make generation-defining cosmological measurements.