Prospects for Observations of Pulsars and Pulsar Wind Nebulae with CTA

Abstract

The last few years have seen a revolution in very-high gamma-ray astronomy (VHE; E>100 GeV) driven largely by a new generation of Cherenkov telescopes (namely the H.E.S.S. telescope array, the MAGIC and MAGIC-II large telescopes and the VERITAS telescope array). The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) project foresees a factor of 5 to 10 improvement in sensitivity above 0.1 TeV, extending the accessible energy range to higher energies up to 100 TeV, in the Galactic cut-off regime, and down to a few tens GeV, covering the VHE photon spectrum with good energy and angular resolution. As a result of the fast development of the VHE field, the number of pulsar wind nebulae (PWNe) detected has increased from one PWN in the early '90s to more than two dozen firm candidates today. Also, the low energy threshold achieved and good sensitivity at TeV energies has resulted in the detection of pulsed emission from the Crab Pulsar (or its close environment) opening new and exiting expectations about the pulsed spectra of the high energy pulsars powering PWNe. Here we discuss the physics goals we aim to achieve with CTA on pulsar and PWNe physics evaluating the response of the instrument for different configurations.

accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physics

References in corpus (11)

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• VHE Gamma-Ray Observation of the Crab Nebula and its Pulsar with the MAGIC telescope
• Observation of Pulsed Gamma-rays Above 25 GeV from the Crab Pulsar with MAGIC
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Cited by in corpus (23)

• Study of the diffuse gamma-ray emission from the Galactic plane with ARGO-YBJ
• Particle Transport within the Pulsar Wind Nebula HESS J1825-137
• Pulsar-wind nebulae and magnetar outflows: observations at radio, X-ray, and gamma-ray wavelengths
• Dark matter vs. Pulsars: Catching the impostor
• Monte Carlo studies for the optimisation of the Cherenkov Telescope Array layout
• ASTRI Mini-Array Core Science at the Observatorio del Teide
• Testing the millisecond pulsar scenario of the Galactic center gamma-ray excess with very high energy gamma-rays
• Very high energy emission as a probe of relativistic magnetic reconnection in pulsar winds
• Reverberation of pulsar wind nebulae (I): Impact of the medium properties and other parameters upon the extent of the compression
• The effects of magnetic field, age, and intrinsic luminosity on Crab-like pulsar wind nebulae
• Reverberation of pulsar wind nebulae (II): Anatomy of the "thin-shell'' evolution
• From young to old: the evolutionary path of Pulsar Wind Nebulae
• Monte Carlo Studies of medium-size telescope designs for the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Pulsed VHE emission from the Crab Pulsar in the context of magnetocentrifugal particle acceleration
• Dense molecular gas at 12 mm towards Galactic TeV gamma-ray sources
• Prospects for the detection of high-energy (E>25 GeV) Fermi pulsars with the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Constraining Models of the Pulsar Wind Nebula in SNR G0.9+0.1 via Simulation of its Detection Properties using the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Pulsar striped winds
• Introducing the HD+B model for pulsar wind nebulae: a hybrid hydrodynamics/radiative approach
• Status of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Project
• Prospects for the characterization of the VHE emission from the Crab Nebula and Pulsar with the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• CTA: the future of ground-based gamma-ray astrophysics
• Simulated Gamma-Ray Pulse Profile of the Crab Pulsar with the Cherenkov Telescope Array