Saul Perlmutter led the Supernova Cosmology Project's measurement of cosmic expansion using 42 distant Type Ia supernovae. Their peak brightnesses were standardized through a relation between light curve width and luminosity, then compared with a nearby sample.
Fitting the magnitude–cosmological redshift relation constrained the matter and cosmological constant contributions together. The paper reported a joint parameter distribution and distinguished statistical errors from identified systematic effects. Its result favored a substantial cosmological constant contribution within the tested models, independently supporting the accelerating-expansion picture.[ref]
Measurements of Omega and Lambda from 42 High-Redshift Supernovae by Saul Perlmutter and others. Abstract: sample, width–luminosity standardization, joint density constraints and uncertainty treatment
Portrait of Saul Perlmutter
. The White House, 2021 PCAST member portrait; existing Commons cropped version. Public domain in the United States: official-duty work by an employee of the Executive Office of the President. Source usage terms, via Wikimedia Commons. Source.
