Comparison of Recent SnIa datasets
  We rank the six latest Type Ia supernova (SnIa) datasets (Constitution (C),
Union (U), ESSENCE (Davis) (E), Gold06 (G), SNLS 1yr (S) and SDSS-II (D)) in
the context of the Chevalier-Polarski-Linder (CPL) parametrization
$w(a)=w_0+w_1 (1-a)$, according to their Figure of Merit (FoM), their
consistency with the cosmological constant ($\Lambda$CDM), their consistency
with standard rulers (Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and Baryon Acoustic
Oscillations (BAO)) and their mutual consistency. We find a significant
improvement of the FoM (defined as the inverse area of the 95.4% parameter
contour) with the number of SnIa of these datasets ((C) highest FoM, (U), (G),
(D), (E), (S) lowest FoM). Standard rulers (CMB+BAO) have a better FoM by about
a factor of 3, compared to the highest FoM SnIa dataset (C). We also find that
the ranking sequence based on consistency with $\Lambda$CDM is identical with
the corresponding ranking based on consistency with standard rulers ((S) most
consistent, (D), (C), (E), (U), (G) least consistent). The ranking sequence of
the datasets however changes when we consider the consistency with an expansion
history corresponding to evolving dark energy $(w_0,w_1)=(-1.4,2)$ crossing the
phantom divide line $w=-1$ (it is practically reversed to (G), (U), (E), (S),
(D), (C)). The SALT2 and MLCS2k2 fitters are also compared and some peculiar
features of the SDSS-II dataset when standardized with the MLCS2k2 fitter are
pointed out. Finally, we construct a statistic to estimate the internal
consistency of a collection of SnIa datasets. We find that even though there is
good consistency among most samples taken from the above datasets, this
consistency decreases significantly when the Gold06 (G) dataset is included in
the sample.
