The High-Z Supernova Search Team was an international cosmology collaboration which used Type Ia supernovae to chart the expansion of the universe. The team was formed in 1994 by Brian P. Schmidt, then a post-doctoral research associate at Harvard University, and Nicholas B. Suntzeff, a staff astronomer at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) in Chile. The original team first proposed for the research on September 29, 1994, in a proposal called A Pilot Project to Search for Distant Type Ia Supernova to the CTIO. The original team as co-listed on the first observing proposal was: Nicholas Suntzeff (PI); Brian Schmidt (Co-I); (other Co-Is) R. Chris Smith, Robert Schommer, Mark M. Phillips, Mario Hamuy, Roberto Aviles, Jose Maza, Adam Riess, Robert Kirshner, Jason Spiromilio, and Bruno Leibundgut. The original project was awarded four nights of telescope time on the CTIO Víctor M. Blanco Telescope on the nights of February 25, 1995, and March 6, 24, and 29, 1995. The pilot project led to the discovery of supernova SN1995Y. In 1995, the HZT elected Brian P. Schmidt of the Mount Stromlo Observatory which is part of the Australian National University to manage the team.

The team expanded to roughly 20 astronomers located in the United States, Europe, Australia, and Chile. They used the Víctor M. Blanco telescope to discover Type Ia supernovae out to redshifts of z = 0.9. The discoveries were verified with spectra taken mostly from the telescopes of the Keck Observatory, and the European Southern Observatory.

In January 1998, Notre Dame astrophysicist Peter Garnavich, then working at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, led a High-Z team publication that used the Hubble Space Telescope to study three high-redshift supernovae.^[1][2] These results indicated that the universe did not contain enough matter to halt its expansion and that the universe would likely expand forever.^[3]

In a May 1998 study led by Adam Riess, the High-Z Team became the first to publish evidence that the expansion of the Universe is accelerating.^[4] The team later spawned Project ESSENCE led by Christopher Stubbs of Harvard University and the Higher-Z Team led by Adam Riess of Johns Hopkins University and Space Telescope Science Institute.

In 2011, Riess and Schmidt, along with Saul Perlmutter of the Supernova Cosmology Project, were awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for this work.^[5]

• 1998: Breakthrough of the Year, Science magazine
• 2006: Shaw Prize
• 2007: Gruber Prize in Cosmology
• 2011: Nobel Prize in Physics
• 2011: Albert Einstein Medal
• 2015: Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics
• 2015: Wolf Prize in Physics

• Mount Stromlo Observatory and the Australian National University
  • Brian P. Schmidt
• CTIO
  • Nicholas Suntzeff
  • Robert Schommer
  • R. Chris Smith
  • Mario Hamuy (1994–1997)
• Las Campanas Observatory
  • Mark M. Phillips (1994–2000)
• Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
  • Alejandro Clocchiatti (starting in 1996)
• University of Chile
  • Jose Maza (1994–1997)
• European Southern Observatory
  • Bruno Leibundgut
  • Jason Spyromilio
• University of Hawaii
  • John Tonry (starting in 1996)
• University of California, Berkeley
  • Alexei Filippenko (starting in 1996)
  • Weidong Li (starting in 1999)
• Space Telescope Science Institute
  • Adam Riess
  • Ron Gilliland (1996–2000)
• University of Washington
  • Christopher Stubbs (starting in 1995)
  • Craig Hogan (starting in 1995)
  • David Reiss (1995–1999)
  • Alan Diercks (1995–1999)
• Harvard University
  • Christopher Stubbs (starting in 2003)
  • Robert Kirshner
  • Thomas Matheson (starting 1999)
  • Saurabh Jha (starting 1997)
  • Peter Challis
• University of Notre Dame
  • Peter Garnavich
  • Stephen Holland (starting 2000)

• High-Z Supernova Search Team Mainsite

v t e Supernovae
Classes	Type Ia Type Iax Type Ib and Ic Type II (IIP, IIL, IIn, and IIb) Hypernova Superluminous Pair-instability Calcium-rich Common envelope jets supernova
Physics of	Carbon detonation Foe/Bethe Near-Earth Phillips relationship Nucleosynthesis p-process r-process γ-process Neutrinos
Related	Failed Fast blue optical transient Fast radio burst Gamma-ray burst Gravitational wave Kilonova Luminous red nova Micronova Nova Pulsar kick Quark-nova Soft gamma repeater Imposter pulsational pair-instability Symbiotic nova
Progenitors	Hypergiant yellow Red Luminous blue variable Supergiant blue red yellow White dwarf Wolf–Rayet star Super-AGB star Population III star
Remnants	Supernova remnant Pulsar wind nebula Neutron star pulsar magnetar Stellar black hole Compact star electroweak exotic quark Zombie star Local Bubble Superbubble Orion–Eridanus
Discovery	Guest star History of supernova observation Timeline of white dwarfs, neutron stars, and supernovae
Lists	Candidates Notable Massive stars Most distant Remnants In fiction
Notable	Barnard's Loop Cassiopeia A SN 1054 Crab Nebula iPTF14hls SN 1000+0216 Tycho's Kepler's SN 1885A SN 1987A SN 1994D SN 185 SN 1006 SN 2003fg Remnant G1.9+0.3 SN 2007bi SN 2011fe SN 2014J SN Refsdal Vela Remnant SN 2006gy ASASSN-15lh SN 2016aps SN 2018cow SN 2022jli
Research	ASAS-SN Calán/Tololo Survey High-Z Supernova Search Team Katzman Automatic Imaging Telescope Monte Agliale Supernovae and Asteroid Survey Nearby Supernova Factory Sloan Supernova Survey Supernova/Acceleration Probe Supernova Cosmology Project SuperNova Early Warning System Supernova Legacy Survey Texas Supernova Search
Category:Supernovae Commons:Supernovae