STEREO ARRAY of 30 m Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes: A Next-Generation Detector for Ground-Based High Energy Gamma-ray Astronomy

Abstract

The construction of the H.E.S.S. (High Energy Stereoscopic System), a superior system of four 12 m imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, has been completed recently in the Namib desert close to Windhoek, at 1800 m above sea level. This new generation of ground-based gamma-ray detectors has an energy threshold of about 100 GeV in observations at zenith and a sensitivity of about 1% Crab flux for a point-like gamma-ray source. Such high sensitivity was achieved due to 0.1 degree angular resolution, as well as, severe cosmic ray background rejection acquired from multi-fold imaging of individual atmospheric showers. In addition H.E.S.S. has a rather good energy resolution of 15%. H.E.S.S. has been taking routine observations of the gamma-ray sources since December 2003. The outstanding physics results achieved with H.E.S.S. already in a first year of its exploitation strongly encourage further development of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov technique for high-quality gamma-ray observations, which is basically driven by father reduction of the energy threshold of a forthcoming major future gamma-ray detector. Here we are dealing with such a detector. Basic results on performance and sensitivity for a single stand-alone 30 m imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescope, as well as for a system of two and five telescopes, are discussed here.

29 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physics Journal

References in corpus (4)

• The Status of the H.E.S.S. Project
• The Crab Nebula and Pulsar between 500 GeV and 80 TeV: Observations with the HEGRA stereoscopic air Cherenkov telescopes
• The optical system of the H.E.S.S. imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, Part I: layout and components of the system
• Altitude Effect in Cherenkov Light Flashes of Low Energy Gamma-ray-induced Atmospheric Showers

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Monte Carlo design studies for the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• IACT observations of gamma-ray bursts: prospects for the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Simulation studies for optimizing the trigger generation criteria for the TACTIC telescope
• Study on Cosmic Ray Background Rejection with a 30 m Stand-Alone IACT using Non-parametric Multivariate Methods in a sub-100 GeV Energy Range
• Earth magnetic field effects on the cosmic electron flux as background for Cherenkov Telescopes at low energies
• Gain variations as induced by the diffuse night sky background: the ASTRI-Horn experience
• Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm Optimisation for an Array of Cherenkov Telescopes