Linear dark energy equation of state revealed by supernovae

In this paper, we propose a test to detect the linearity of the dark energy equation of state, and apply it to the SNLS3 Type Ia Supernova (SN Ia) data set. We find that: (a) current SN Ia data are well described by a dark energy equation of state linear in the cosmic scale factor a, at least up to a redshift z = 1, independent of the pivot points chosen for the linear relation; (b) there is no significant evidence of any deviation from linearity. This apparent linearity may reflect the limit of dark energy information extractable from current SN Ia data.