A problem with the analysis of type Ia supernovae

TL;DR

The paper argues that standard calibration methods for type Ia supernovae remove cosmological information, challenging their use for cosmology and supporting a static universe hypothesis.

Contribution

It demonstrates that common calibration techniques eliminate cosmological signals, questioning the validity of supernovae as cosmological probes and supporting a static universe model.

Findings

Raw supernova light curve widths show no time dilation.

Calibration templates exhibit wavelength dependence consistent with no time dilation.

Peak absolute magnitudes are independent of redshift in a static universe model.

Abstract

Type Ia supernovae have light curves that have widths and magnitudes that can be used for testing cosmologies and they provide one of the few direct measurements of time dilation. It is shown that the standard analysis that calibrates the light curve against a rest-frame average (such as SALT2) removes all the cosmological information from the calibrated light curves. Consequently type Ia supernovae calibrated with these methods cannot be used to investigate cosmology. The major evidence that supports the hypothesis of a static universe is that the measurements of the widths of the raw light curves of type Ia supernovae do not show any time dilation. The intrinsic wavelength dependence shown by the SALT2 calibration templates is also consistent with no time dilation. Using a static cosmological model the peak absolute magnitudes of raw type Ia supernovae observations are also independent of redshift. These results support the hypothesis of a static universe.