First measurement of σ8 using supernova magnitudes only

Abstract

Abstract A method was recently proposed which allows the conversion of the weak-lensing effects in the Type Ia supernova (SNeIa) Hubble diagram from noise into signal. Such signal is sensitive to the growth of structure in the universe, and in particular can be used as a measurement of σ8 independently from more traditional methods such as those based on the cosmic microwave background, cosmic shear or cluster abundance. We extend here that analysis to allow for intrinsic non-Gaussianities in the supernova probability distribution function, and discuss how this can be best modelled using the Bayes factor. Although it was shown that a precise measurement of σ8 requires ∼105 SNeIa, current data already allow an important proof of principle. In particular, we make use of the 706 supernovae with z ≤ 0.9 of the recent Joint Lightcurve Analysis catalogue and show that a simple treatment of intrinsic non-Gaussianities with a couple of nuisance parameters is enough for our method to yield the values $\,\sigma _8 = 0.84^{+0.28}_{-0.65}\,$ or σ8 < 1.45 at a 2σ confidence level. This result is consistent with mock simulations and it is also in agreement with independent measurements and presents the first ever measurement of σ8 using SNeIa magnitudes alone.