Feasibility of Measuring the Cosmological Constant Lambda and Mass Density Omega using Type Ia Supernovae

Abstract

We explore the feasibility of resurrecting the apparent magnitude-redshift relation for a ``standard candle'' to measure the cosmological constant and mass density. We show that type Ia supernovae, if measured with 0.15 mag uncertainty out to a redshift of z=1, may provide a good standard candle or calibrated candle for this purpose. The recent discovery of probable type Ia supernovae in the redshift range z=0.3 to 0.5 (Perlmutter 1994a, and 1994b) indicates that the flux of optical photons from these events can be measured this accurately. The 7 distant supernovae discovered to date do not by themselves distinguish between different cosmological models, however the further discovery of about 50 type Ia supernovae at redshifts in the range $0.5 \leq z \leq 1.0 $ could strongly constrain the allowed range of these parameters. We estimate that the follow-up photometry necessary for this measurement would be on the order of 20 - 70 hours of time on a 10-meter class telescope at a site with good seeing.