Standardizing Type Ia Supernova Absolute Magnitudes Using Gaussian Process Data Regression

Understand

We present a novel class of models for Type Ia supernova time-evolving spectral energy distributions (SED) and absolute magnitudes: they are each modeled as stochastic functions described by Gaussian processes.

• The values of the SED and absolute magnitudes are defined through well-defined regression prescriptions, so that data directly inform the models.
• As a proof of concept, we implement a model for synthetic photometry built from the spectrophotometric time series from the Nearby Supernova Factory.
• Absolute magnitudes at peak $B$ brightness are calibrated to 0.13 mag in the $g$-band and to as low as 0.09 mag in the $z=0.25$ blueshifted $i$-band, where the dispersion includes contributions from measurement uncertainties and peculiar velocities.