Optimizing Type Ia supernova follow-up in future dark energy surveys

In the next-generation supernova surveys (Palomar Transient Factory, Dark Energy Survey, LSST, JDEM, etc.) maximizing the cosmological return on each supernova and limiting the systematic uncertainties will be crucial for determining the nature of dark energy. Here we present recent results from the Nearby Supernova Factory, a program that has followed almost 200 SN Ia in the Hubble flow with spectrophotometry. We have used the code SYNAPPS, a combination of the SYNOW spectrum synthesis fitter and the APPSPACK optimization code to automatically perform a highly parameterized fit to observational spectra, to begin the work of identifying the spectral features in a SN Ia that are most important for using these explosions as cosmological probes.