Are type Ia supernovae reliable distance indicators

Abstract

Recent applications of type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) in cosmology have successfully revealed the accelerating expansion of the universe. However, as distance indicators used in measuring the expansion history of the universe and probing the nature of dark energy, these objects must pass more strict tests. We propose a K-S test to investigate if there exists any systematic bias when deriving the luminosity distances under the standard candle assumption. Two samples, one comprising 71 high-redshift SNe Ia and the other, 44 nearby ones, are used in our investigation. We find that it is likely there exists a bias in the adopted samples, which is probably caused by a systematic error, e.g. in the color parameter used in the luminosity calibration and a bias may be caused by the SN evolution or by varying properties of the dust surrounding the SNe Ia.