About

SweetSpot was a 3-year NOAO Survey (2012B-0500) that collected 114 Type Ia Supernovae (SNeIa) located in the nearby smooth Hubble flow over 88 nights using the WIYN High Resolution Infrared Camera (WHIRC) mounted on the WIYN 3.5 m Telescope located on Kitt Peak.

The goals of this survey are to

1. Extend NIR Hubble diagram out to z~0.08
2. Quantitatively test how standard SNeIa are in the NIR
3. Provide insights into the color involution of SNeIa
4. Study dust in other galaxies
5. Explore correlations of NIR SNeIa with host galaxy properites
6. Provide a well-calibrated low-redshift anchor for future, potentially space-based surveys

Locations of 115 SNe (114 SNeIa and 1 Ibn) on the Sky:

Published Papers

Pilot : Weyant et al 2014

Submitted: Weyant et al 2017 - The First Data Release from SweetSpot: 74 Supernovae in 36 Nights on WIYN+WHIRC

Here are postage stamps of the 74 SNeIa released in DR1:

Data Products

Observed Supernovae: http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~wmwv/SweetSpot/obs/WIYN_NIR_SNIa_observed_planned.txt

Raw data for all data releases are located on the NOAO Science Archive.

Pilot paper: Lightcurves published in paper.

DR1: Catalogs and lightcurves can be found on a U.Pitt server here, but will soon be added to the NOAO archives.

Authors and Contributors

Principal Investigator: W. Michael Wood-Vasey (@wmwv), U. Pittsburgh, wmwv@pitt.edu

Current Lead Graduate Student: Kara Ponder (@kponder), U. Pittsburgh, kap146@pitt.edu

Previous Lead Graduate Student: Anja Weyant, anw19@pitt.edu

Co-Is:

• Lori Allen, NOAO
• Peter Garnavich, Notre Dame
• Saurabh Jha, Rutgers
• Richard Joyce, NOAO
• Tom Matheson, NOAO
• Armin Rest, STScI

Undergraduates :

• Jess Kroboth, U. Pittsburgh
• Nathan Barton, Work done as high school student, currently at Caltech
• Megan Fairgrieve, U. Pittsburgh
• Nicolette Kier, U. Pittsburgh

Presentations and Posters

Presentations:

• SweetSpot: NOAO Near-Infrared Survey of Type Ia Supernovae in the Nearby Hubble Flow , Kara Ponder, Supernova Through the Ages: Understanding the Past to Prepare for the Future, August 2016

Posters:

• IFU Spectroscopy of 32 SweetSpot Supernova Host Galaxies, Ponder, K et al, AAS, 228th AAS, #315.01 (2016)
• SweetSpot Data Release 1: 70 Type Ia Supernovae in the Near Infrared in the Nearby Hubble Flow, Wood-Vasey, W.M. et al, AAS, 225th AAS, #140.03 (2015)
• SweetSpot Data Release 1: 70 Type Ia Supernovae in the Near Infrared in the Nearby Hubble Flow, Wood-Vasey, W.M. et al, AAS, 224th AAS, #121.15 (2014)
• SweetSpot: A 3-year NOAO Survey to Observe 150 Type Ia Supernovae in the Near Infrared in the Nearby Hubble Flow, Wood-Vasey, W.M. et al, AAS, 223rd AAS, #354.01 (2014)

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the NOAO and WIYN Facilities. This project was given time under proposal IDs: 2011B-0482, 2012B-0500, and 2015B-0347.

This project is funded through the National Science Foundation (NSF AST-1028162).