title: Marginal evidence for cosmic acceleration from Type Ia supernovae.
abstract: The 'standard' model of cosmology is founded on the basis that the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating at present - as was inferred originally from the Hubble diagram of Type Ia supernovae. There exists now a much bigger database of supernovae so we can perform rigorous statistical tests to check whether these 'standardisable candles' indeed indicate cosmic acceleration. Taking account of the empirical procedure by which corrections are made to their absolute magnitudes to allow for the varying shape of the light curve and extinction by dust, we find, rather surprisingly, that the data are still quite consistent with a constant rate of expansion.
authors: Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Blegdamsvej 17, Copenhagen 2100, Denmark.
authors: J T
authors: JT
authors: Nielsen
authors: Dipartimento di Fisica, Università degli Studi di Torino, via P. Giuria 1, I-10125 Torino, Italy.
authors: A
authors: A
authors: Guffanti
authors: Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen, Blegdamsvej 17, Copenhagen 2100, Denmark.|Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics, University of Oxford, 1 Keble Road, Oxford OX1 3NP, UK.
authors: S
authors: S
authors: Sarkar