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Prospective Type Ia Supernova Surveys From Dome A, A. Kim, A. Bonissent, Jodi L. Christiansen, A. Ealet, L. Faccioli, L. Gladney, G. Kushner, E. Linder, C. Stoughton, L. Wang

Physics

Dome A, the highest plateau in Antarctica, is being developed as a site for an astronomical observatory. The planned telescopes and instrumentation and the unique site characteristics are conducive toward Type Ia supernova surveys for cosmology. A self-contained search and survey over five years can yield a spectro-photometric time series of ∼1000 z < 0.08 supernovae. These can serve to anchor the Hubble diagram and quantify the relationship between luminosities and heterogeneities within the Type Ia supernova class, reducing systematics. Larger aperture (>4-m) telescopes are capable of discovering supernovae shortly after explosion out to z ∼ 3. These can be fed to space telescopes, and can isolate systematics and extend the redshift range over which we measure the expansion history of the universe.