Cosmological Constraints from Type Ia Supernovae Peculiar Velocity Measurements

Abstract

We detect the correlated peculiar velocities of nearby type Ia supernovae (SNe), while highlighting an error in some of the literature. We find sigma_8=0.79 +/- 0.22 from SNe, and examine the potential of this method to constrain cosmological parameters in the future. We demonstrate that a survey of 300 low-z SNe (such as the nearby SNfactory) will underestimate the errors on w by about 35% if the coherent peculiar velocities are not included.

5 pages, 4 figures. V2: references added. V3: clarifying comments added in response to referee reports. V4: typo in eq. 6 corrected. V5: error in Fig. 1 corrected