From observations of 7 Type Ia supernovae obtained during the last four years
at the Las Campanas and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatories, along with
previous published data for 9 supernovae, we present JHK Hubble diagrams and
derive absolute magnitudes at maximum light of 16 objects out to a redshift of
0.038. On the scale of H_0 = 72 km/s/Mpc we find mean absolute magnitudes at
maximum of -18.57, -18.24, and -18.42 for J, H, and K, respectively, with
1-sigma uncertainties of the distributions of values of +/- 0.14, 0.18, and
0.12 mag. The data indicate no significant decline rate relations for the
infrared. Thus, Type Ia SNe at maximum brightness appear to be standard candles
in the infrared at the +/- 0.20 mag level or better. The minimum requirements
for obtaining the distance to a Type Ia SN are: reasonably accurate values of
Delta m_15(B) and T(B_max), and one night of infrared data in the -12 to +10 d
window with respect to T(B_max).Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, published in the Astrophysical Journal, vol.
602, pp. L81-L84 (20 February 2004). This version gives more credit where
credit is du