CAREER: Understanding the Nature of Dark Energy with the Young Supernova Experiment and the Legacy Survey of Space and Time

研究者试图准确地确定描述我们宇宙膨胀的两个数字。第一个是“哈勃常数”，用来衡量当今宇宙膨胀的速度。第二种描述了“暗能量”的状态方程。暗能量是解释宇宙膨胀速度增加的必要条件。一些罕见的、明亮的、正在爆炸的恒星，被称为“Ia型超新星”（SN Ia），非常适合这项任务。每一颗超新星都为我们提供了恒星死亡时宇宙大小的单一测量值。利用一个新的观测项目——年轻超新星实验（YSE），研究者将测量附近宇宙中最均匀的Ia超新星样本。研究人员将利用这个样本来开发确定宇宙学参数的新方法。与一组公民科学家一起，研究人员将开发新的工具来识别遥远宇宙中的Ia型超新星，利用美国国家科学基金会维拉·c·鲁宾天文台的观测结果。在YSE将发现数千颗超新星的地方，鲁宾天文台的调查，称为空间和时间的遗产调查（LSST），将发现数十万颗。研究者还将让学校和公民科学家参与这项研究。研究人员将把观测结果放在公共Zooniverse平台上，并为当地学生创建Jupyter笔记本，包括“女性天文学夏令营”和“编程女孩”小组。他们将从伊利诺伊中部地区服务不足的社区招募学生，使用本研究开发的材料教授他们机器学习和数据科学。研究者将使用YSE超新星和LSST的样本。哈勃常数的测量精度预计为1.6%，暗能量状态方程的测量精度为低于1%，研究人员将把近宇宙与遥远宇宙连接起来。公民科学是研究计划的核心。研究人员将使用Zooniverse平台为整个样本识别超新星的宿主星系，为自动算法的性能提供有价值的交叉检查。该研究奖的部分资金来自查尔斯·西蒙尼对美国国家科学基金会天文部门的慷慨捐赠。该项目包括对Vera C. Rubin天文台的时空遗产调查的重大贡献。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The investigator seeks to accurately determine the two numbers describing the expansion of our Universe. The first, the "Hubble constant", is a measure of the rate of the expansion of the Universe today. The second describes the equation-of-state of “Dark Energy”. Dark Energy is required to explain the increasing rate of expansion of the Universe. Some rare, bright, exploding stars, called "type Ia supernovae" (SN Ia), are perfectly suited to this task. Each of these supernovae provides us a single measurement of the size of the Universe at the instant that the star died. Using a new observational project, the Young Supernova Experiment (YSE), the investigator will measure the most uniform sample of SN Ia in the nearby Universe. The investigator will use this sample to develop novel methods of determining the cosmological parameters. With a team of citizen scientists, the investigator will develop new tools to identify type Ia supernovae in the distant Universe, using observations from NSF’s Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Where YSE will find thousands of supernovae, the Rubin Observatory survey, called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST), will discover hundreds of thousands. The investigator will also involve schools and citizen scientists in this research. The investigator will place the observations on the public Zooniverse platform and create Jupyter Notebooks for instruction for local students, including the “Women Astronomy Summer Camp” and “Girls who Code” groups. They will recruit students from underserved communities in the greater Central Illinois Region, teaching them machine learning and data science using the material developed in this research.The investigator will use the YSE supernovae together with the sample from LSST. With an anticipated 1.6% measurement accuracy of the Hubble constant and sub-percent measurement of the equation-of-state of Dark Energy, the investigator will connect the nearby to the distant Universe. Citizen-science is central to the research plan. The investigator will use the Zooniverse platform to identify the host-galaxies of supernovae for the full sample, providing a valuable cross-check on the performance on automated algorithms. This research award is partially funded by a generous gift from Charles Simonyi to the NSF Astronomy division. The project includes significant contributions to Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.