Very-High Energy (VHE) gamma-ray astroparticle physics is a relatively young field, and observations over the past decade have surprisingly revealed almost two hundred VHE emitters which appear to act as cosmic particle accelerators. These sources are an important component of the Universe, influencing the evolution of stars and galaxies. At the same time, they also act as a probe of physics in the most extreme environments known -such as in supernova explosions, and around or after the merging of black holes and neutron stars. However, the existing experiments have provided exciting glimpses, but often falling short of supplying the full answer. A deeper understanding of the TeV sky requires a significant improvement in sensitivity at TeV energies, a wider energy coverage from tens of GeV to hundreds of TeV and a much better angular and energy resolution with respect to the currently running facilities. The next generation gamma-ray observatory, the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO), is the answer to this need. In this talk I will present this upcoming observatory from its design to the construction, and its potential science exploitation. CTAO will allow the entire astronomical community to explore a new discovery space that will likely lead to paradigm-changing breakthroughs. In particular, CTA has an unprecedented sensitivity to short (sub-minute) timescale phenomena, placing it as a key instrument in the future of multi-messenger and multi-wavelength time domain astronomy. I will conclude the talk presenting the first scientific results obtained by the LST-1, the prototype of one CTA telescope type -the Large Sized Telescope, that is currently under commission.

The Large-Sized Telescope (LST) prototype of the future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is located at the Northern site of CTA, on the Canary Island of La Palma. It is designed to provide optimal performance in the lowest part of the energy range covered by CTA, observing gamma rays down to energies of tens of GeV. The LST prototype started performing astronomical observations in November 2019 during the commissioning of the telescope and it has been taking data since then. In this contribution, we will present the tuning of the characteristics of the telescope in the Monte Carlo (MC) simulations to describe the data obtained, the estimation of its angular and energy resolution, and an evaluation of its sensitivity, both with simulations and with observations of the Crab Nebula.

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The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next-generation gamma-ray observatory that is expected to reach one order of magnitude better sensitivity than that of current telescope arrays. The Large-Sized Telescopes (LSTs) have an essential role in extending the energy range down to 20 GeV. The prototype LST (LST-1) proposed for CTA was built in La Palma, the northern site of CTA, in 2018. LST-1 is currently in its commissioning phase and moving towards scientific observations. The LST-1 camera consists of 1855 photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) which are sensitive to Cherenkov light. PMT signals are recorded as waveforms sampled at 1 GHz rate with Domino Ring Sampler version 4 (DRS4) chips. Fast sampling is essential to achieve a low energy threshold by minimizing the integration of background light from the night sky. Absolute charge calibration can be performed by the so-called F-factor method, which allows calibration constants to be monitored even during observations. A calibration pipeline of the camera readout has been developed as part of the LST analysis chain. The pipeline performs DRS4 pedestal and timing corrections, as well as the extraction and calibration of charge and time of pulses for subsequent higher-level analysis. The performance of each calibration step is examined, and especially charge and time resolution of the camera readout are evaluated and compared to CTA requirements. We report on the current status of the calibration pipeline, including the performance of each step through to signal reconstruction, and the consistency with Monte Carlo simulations.

The high-frequency peaked BL Lac type object (HBL) 1ES 1959+650 is one of the brightest blazars in the very-high-energy (VHE, 100 GeV) gamma-ray sky. HBLs have been proposed as possible neutrino emitters implying the presence of hadrons in the emission mechanisms. In 2002, AMANDA reported neutrino candidates from this source simultaneously observed with a gamma-ray flaring activity without an X-ray emission enhancement, interpreted as an orphan flare. Standard one-zone synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) emission models cannot explain this behavior. The MAGIC telescopes have been observing 1ES 1959+650 since 2004. An extreme outburst triggered by multiwavelength observations reaching 300% of the Crab nebula flux level above 300 GeV was detected in 2016. Leptonic and hadronic models are equally successful in describing the observed emission. To study the long-term behavior and the characteristics in different emission states of 1ES 1959+650, we have densely monitored it since 2017 for more than 300 hours. Together with the FACT monitoring (more than 2000 hours since 2012), this is the most intense monitoring for any blazar after Mrk 421 and Mrk 501 in the VHE range. The monitoring shows a decline of the VHE flux with occasional flaring episodes reaching in 2019 a low-state emission corresponding to 10% of the Crab nebula. We present the long-term monitoring study results using multiwavelength data from MAGIC, FACT, Fermi-LAT, Swift, OVRO and Tuorla. Lastly, we discuss the differences in the broadband spectral energy distributions between the flaring states from 2016 and the low state in 2019.