On the necessity of a consistent likelihood-based approach to model magnitude dispersion in type Ia supernovae observations
Year: 2011
Type: preprint
Abstract: In this article we present an alternative, numerically efficient, statistical analysis of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) data: instead of performing the traditional χ2 procedure, we suggest working with the complete likelihood itself. Indeed the latter must be used instead of the former when dealing with parameters in the expression for the variance — which is exactly the case of SNe Ia surveys, using either MLCS2k2 or SALT2 light-curve fitters. Although these two analyses are in principle distinct, we find no significant quantitative differences, for cosmological parameters, in either best fits or confidence intervals estimation when using current SNe Ia data. We conjecture that this practical equivalence may not remain when dealing with future SNe Ia data.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2286320081