Introducing the CTA concept

Abstract

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a new observatory for very high-energy (VHE) gamma rays. CTA has ambitions science goals, for which it is necessary to achieve full-sky coverage, to improve the sensitivity by about an order of magnitude, to span about four decades of energy, from a few tens of GeV to above 100 TeV with enhanced angular and energy resolutions over existing VHE gamma-ray observatories. An international collaboration has formed with more than 1000 members from 27 countries in Europe, Asia, Africa and North and South America. In 2010 the CTA Consortium completed a Design Study and started a three-year Preparatory Phase which leads to production readiness of CTA in 2014. In this paper we introduce the science goals and the concept of CTA, and provide an overview of the project. ?? 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved

The major upgrade of the MAGIC telescopes, Part I: The hardware improvements and the commissioning of the system

“…the down time due to technical problems was < 10% of the observation time in the first two years after the upgrade was finished, with only less than 2% observation time loss due to troubles in the upgraded subsystems. This is more than a factor of two better than in the years before the upgrade and at the level required for the new generation Cherenkov telescopes of the CTA observatory (Acharya et al 2013). The expectations concerning the sensitivity of MAGIC were conservative since they have been surpassed.…”

Overview of Atmospheric Simulation Efforts in CTA

“…The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the nextgeneration instrument for detecting very high energy (VHE) γ-rays (20 GeV -300 TeV) and it will be the major global observatory for gamma-ray astronomy [1]. These VHE γ-rays originate from non-thermal processes in the universe, both galactic (supernova remnants, pulsars or pulsar-wind nebulae) and extragalactic (active galactic nuclei, starburst galaxies, galaxy clusters or gamma ray bursts).…”

Search for annihilating Dark Matter towards dwarf galaxies with the Cherenkov Telescope Array

“…WIMPs models, such as the supersymmetric neutralino give prediction the for gamma-ray energy spectra from the annihilations, which are crucial inputs, together with the DM distribution in the observed target, to achieve prospects for the sensitivity of indirect searches [4]. The goal of the present study is to provide preliminary comparative expectations on indirect DM searches with the Cherenkov Telescope Array [5], taking into account continuum gamma-ray signatures coming from typical DM annihilation channels.…”