Quantifying systematic uncertainties in supernova cosmology

Observations of Type Ia supernovae used to map the expansion history of the Universe suffer from systematic uncertainties that need to be propagated into the estimates of cosmological parameters. We propose an iterative Monte Carlo simulation and cosmology fitting technique (SMOCK) to investigate the impact of sources of error upon fits of the dark energy equation of state. This approach is especially useful to track the impact of non-Gaussian, correlated effects, e.g. reddening correction errors, brightness evolution of the supernovae, K-corrections, gravitational lensing, etc. While the tool is primarily aimed at studies and optimization of future instruments, we use the Gold data-set in Riess et al (2007 Astrophys. J. 659 98) to show examples of potential systematic uncertainties that could exceed the quoted statistical uncertainties.