The First VERITAS Telescope

Abstract

The first atmospheric Cherenkov telescope of VERITAS (the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) has been in operation since February 2005. We present here a technical description of the instrument and a summary of its performance. The calibration methods are described, along with the results of Monte Carlo simulations of the telescope and comparisons between real and simulated data. The analysis of TeV $\gamma$-ray observations of the Crab Nebula, including the reconstructed energy spectrum, is shown to give results consistent with earlier measurements. The telescope is operating as expected and has met or exceeded all design specifications.

Accepted by Astroparticle Physics

References in corpus (6)

• On the knee in the energy spectrum of cosmic rays
• The Status of the H.E.S.S. Project
• VERITAS: the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System
• A new population of very high energy gamma-ray sources in the Milky Way
• The Crab Nebula and Pulsar between 500 GeV and 80 TeV: Observations with the HEGRA stereoscopic air Cherenkov telescopes
• The Technical Performance of the HEGRA System of Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes

Cited by in corpus (159)

• Multi-messenger observations of a flaring blazar coincident with high-energy neutrino IceCube-170922A
• Design Concepts for the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• The 2HWC HAWC Observatory Gamma Ray Catalog
• Galactic Searches for Dark Matter
• Gamma Ray Signals from Dark Matter: Concepts, Status and Prospects
• Detection of Pulsed Gamma Rays Above 100 GeV from the Crab Pulsar
• VERITAS Observations of the gamma-Ray Binary LS I +61 303
• Solution of heliospheric propagation: unveiling the local interstellar spectra of cosmic ray species
• Observation of Extended VHE Emission from the Supernova Remnant IC 443 with VERITAS
• Multiwavelength Study of Quiescent States of Mrk 421 with Unprecedented Hard X-Ray Coverage Provided by NuSTAR in 2013
• Dark Matter Constraints from a Joint Analysis of Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy Observations with VERITAS
• Constraints on Cosmic Rays, Magnetic Fields, and Dark Matter from Gamma-Ray Observations of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies with VERITAS and Fermi
• A realistic assessment of the CTA sensitivity to dark matter annihilation
• Inference of the Local Interstellar Spectra of Cosmic Ray Nuclei Z<=28 with the GalProp-HelMod Framework
• Observation of gamma-ray emission from the galaxy M87 above 250 GeV with VERITAS
• VERITAS Deep Observations of the Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy Segue 1
• Multiwavelength observations of a TeV-Flare from W Comae
• Observations of the shell-type SNR Cassiopeia A at TeV energies with VERITAS
• High energy gamma-ray emission from Gamma-Ray Bursts -- before GLAST
• Discovery of very high energy gamma rays from PKS 1424+240 and multiwavelength constraints on its redshift
• Gamma-ray observations of Tycho's SNR with VERITAS and Fermi
• Towards open and reproducible multi-instrument analysis in gamma-ray astronomy
• Hazma: A Python Toolkit for Studying Indirect Detection of Sub-GeV Dark Matter
• Detection of Intra-day Variability Timescales of Four High Energy Peaked Blazars with XMM-Newton
• Detection of Extended VHE Gamma Ray Emission from G106.3+2.7 with VERITAS
• First NuSTAR Observations of Mrk 501 within a Radio to TeV Multi-Instrument Campaign
• Search for Magnetically Broadened Cascade Emission From Blazars with VERITAS
• Discovery of Variability in the Very High Energy Gamma-Ray Emission of 1ES 1218+304 with VERITAS
• VERITAS Observations of day-scale flaring of M87 in 2010 April
• Comparative study of afterpulsing behavior and models in single photon counting avalanche photo diode detectors
• The ANTARES Astronomical Time-Domain Event Broker
• First ground based measurement of atmospheric Cherenkov light from cosmic rays
• Demonstration of stellar intensity interferometry with the four VERITAS telescopes
• Optical Intensity Interferometry with Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope Arrays
• A Very High Energy $\gamma$-Ray Survey towards the Cygnus Region of the Galaxy
• Measurement of Cosmic-ray Electrons at TeV Energies by VERITAS
• VERITAS 2008 - 2009 monitoring of the variable gamma-ray source M87
• ASTRI Mini-Array Core Science at the Observatorio del Teide
• WIMP searches with gamma rays in the Fermi era: challenges, methods and results
• Evidence for proton acceleration up to TeV energies based on VERITAS and Fermi-LAT observations of the Cas A SNR
• The most powerful flaring activity from the NLSy1 PMN J0948+0022
• The Blazar sequence and its Physical Understanding
• Precision Photon Spectra for Wino Annihilation
• Resummed Photon Spectra for WIMP Annihilation
• Signal Reconstruction for the MAGIC Telescope
• The future of gamma-ray astronomy
• Deep Broadband Observations of the Distant Gamma-ray Blazar PKS 1424+240
• The Great Markarian 421 Flare of February 2010: Multiwavelength variability and correlation studies
• Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope: High-Energy Results from the First Year
• Multiwavelength Observations of LS I +61 303 with VERITAS, Swift and RXTE
• VERITAS observations of the BL Lac object TXS 0506+056
• A Search for Brief Optical Flashes Associated with the SETI Target KIC 8462852
• Multiwavelength Observations of the VHE Blazar 1ES 2344+514
• Measurement of the extragalactic background light spectral energy distribution with VERITAS
• Very-high energy gamma-ray astronomy: A 23-year success story in high-energy astroparticle physics
• Absorption of 10 Gev--1 Tev Gamma Rays by Radiation from Broad-Line Region in 3C 279
• A black hole window into p-wave dark matter annihilation
• Multiwavelength Observations of the Previously Unidentified Blazar RX J0648.7+1516
• Discovery of VHE $\gamma$-ray emission from the SNR G54.1+0.3
• Upper limits from five years of blazar observations with the VERITAS Cherenkov telescopes
• The One-Loop Correction to Heavy Dark Matter Annihilation
• New Constraints on Quantum Gravity from X-ray and Gamma-Ray Observations
• Extracting gamma-ray information from images with convolutional neural network methods on simulated Cherenkov Telescope Array data
• Broadband Multi-wavelength Properties of M87 during the 2018 EHT Campaign including a Very High Energy Flaring Episode
• Detection of the Crab Nebula with the 9.7 m Prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope
• Very High Energy outburst of Markarian 501 in May 2009
• Monte-Carlo simulation of stellar intensity interferometry
• ROBAST: Development of a ROOT-Based Ray-Tracing Library for Cosmic-Ray Telescopes and its Applications in the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Introducing the MeVCube concept: a CubeSat for MeV observations
• The Breakthrough Listen Search for Intelligent Life: MeerKAT Target Selection
• The throughput calibration of the VERITAS telescopes
• An LED-based Flasher System for VERITAS
• A Search for Pulsations from Geminga Above 100 GeV with VERITAS
• Direct measurement of stellar angular diameters by the VERITAS Cherenkov Telescopes
• Detailed Studies of Atmospheric Calibration in Imaging Cherenkov Astronomy
• Very-High-Energy $\gamma$-Ray Observations of the Blazar 1ES 2344+514 with VERITAS
• VERITAS Discovery of VHE Emission from the Radio Galaxy 3C 264: A Multi-Wavelength Study
• HESS J1943+213: An Extreme Blazar Shining Through The Galactic Plane
• Constraining the loop quantum gravity parameter space from phenomenology
• Monte Carlo Studies of medium-size telescope designs for the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Constraints on very high energy gamma-ray emission from the Fermi Bubbles with future ground-based experiments
• On the prospects of gamma-ray burst detection in the TeV band
• Novel Gamma-Ray Signatures of PeV-Scale Dark Matter
• Search for a correlation between very-high-energy gamma rays and giant radio pulses in the Crab pulsar
• A Robust Approach to Constraining Dark Matter from Gamma-Ray Data
• The VERITAS Upgraded Telescope-Level Trigger Systems: Technical Details and Performance Characterization
• Search for Blazar Flux-Correlated TeV Neutrinos in IceCube 40-String Data
• A Search for TeV Gamma-ray Emission from Pulsar Tails by VERITAS
• Sensitivity estimate of the MACE gamma ray telescope
• Discovery of Very High Energy Gamma Rays from 1ES 1440+122
• Bokeh Mirror Alignment for Cherenkov Telescopes
• A generalized likelihood ratio test statistic for Cherenkov telescope data
• Optical Spectroscopy of Blazars for the Cherenkov Telescope Array -- II
• VTSCat: The VERITAS Catalog of Gamma-Ray Observations
• Machine Learning for Imaging Cherenkov Detectors
• Focal Plane Instrumentation of VERITAS
• A Search for Very High-Energy Gamma Rays from the Missing Link Binary Pulsar J1023+0038 with VERITAS
• A new solution for mirror coating in $\gamma$-ray Cherenkov Astronomy
• VERITAS Observations of Six Bright, Hard-Spectrum Fermi-LAT Blazars
• Statistical Tools for Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes
• Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope for the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Probing the Properties of the Pulsar Wind in the Gamma-Ray Binary HESS J0632+057 with NuSTAR and VERITAS Observations
• Normalized and Asynchronous Mirror Alignment for Cherenkov Telescopes
• Prototyping the graphical user interface for the operator of the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Photohadronic model for the neutrino and $\gamma$-ray emission from TXS 0506+056
• VERITAS and Fermi-LAT constraints on the Gamma-ray Emission from Superluminous Supernovae SN2015bn and SN2017egm
• Multi-Wavelength Observation Campaign of the TeV Gamma-Ray Binary HESS J0632+057 with NuSTAR, VERITAS, MDM, and Swift
• The Graphical User Interface of the Operator of the Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Search for Primordial Black Holes with SGARFACE
• Reconcilement of VHE $\gamma$-ray/X-ray correlation studies in Mrk 421 and break-down at high fluxes
• Performance and systematic uncertainties of CTA-North in conditions of reduced atmospheric transmission
• Toward the Detection of Relativistic Image Doubling in Imaging Atmospheric Cerenkov Telescopes
• Gamma-ray emission revealed at the western edge of SNR G344.7-0.1
• Searching for Fast Optical Transients using VERITAS Cherenkov Telescopes
• A VERITAS/Breakthrough Listen Search for Optical Technosignatures
• Search of MeV-GeV counterparts of TeV sources with AGILE in pointing mode
• In-situ measurements of whole-dish reflectivity for VERITAS
• Gamma/hadron separation in the TAIGA experiment with neural network methods
• Improved Method of the Extensive Air Shower Arrival Direction Estimation
• Very High Energy Flat Spectral Radio Quasar Candidates
• Discovery of very-high-energy emission from RGB J2243+203 and derivation of its redshift upper limit
• Present and Future Gamma-Ray Probes of the Cygnus OB2 Environment
• Science Highlights from VERITAS
• 2FHL J0826.1-4500: Discovery of a possible shock-cloud interaction on the Western edge of the Vela SNR
• Discovery of transient high-energy gamma-ray emission from the BL Lacertae object 5C 3.178
• Very high energy observations of the BL Lac objects 3C 66A and OJ 287
• An Archival Search for Neutron-Star Mergers in Gravitational Waves and Very-High-Energy Gamma Rays
• Experimental approaches for 100 TeV gamma-ray astronomy
• Joint searches by FACT, H.E.S.S., MAGIC and VERITAS for VHE gamma-ray emission associated with neutrinos detected by IceCube
• tilepy: rapid tiling strategies in mid/small FoV observatories
• High energy emission from transients
• The Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS)
• A novel approach to optimizing the image cleaning performance of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes: Application to a time-based cleaning for H.E.S.S
• Performance of the upgraded VERITAS Stellar Intensity Interferometer (VSII)
• An image-based array trigger for Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope Arrays
• Application of Graph Networks to a wide-field Water-Cherenkov-based Gamma-Ray Observatory
• Application of the optimised next neighbour image cleaning method to the VERITAS array
• Measurement of the photosphere oblateness of $\gamma$ Cassiopeiae via Stellar Intensity Interferometry with the VERITAS Observatory
• H.E.S.S. programme searching for VHE gamma rays associated with FRBs
• Recasting and Forecasting Dark Matter Limits Without Raw Data: A Generalized Algorithm for Gamma-Ray Telescopes
• Parallel Distribution of Asynchronous Optical Signals
• A search for pulsations from the compact object of GRB 060218
• Mirror Position Determination for the Alignment of Cherenkov Telescopes
• First Detection of the Crab Pulsar above 100 GeV
• VERITAS follow-up observation of the BL Lac blazar B2 1811+31 2020 Flare
• CTbend: A Bayesian open-source framework to model pointing corrections for Cherenkov telescopes
• An Archival Search for Very-High-Energy Counterparts to Sub-Threshold Neutron-Star Merger Candidates
• Predictions of TeV emission for a set of hard BL Lac objects
• Characterizing the VHE emission of LS I +61 303 using VERITAS observations
• A Fiber Optic Based High Voltage System for Stellar Intensity Interferometry Observations
• Towards micro-arcsecond spatial resolution with Air Cherenkov Telescope arrays as optical intensity interferometers
• Tau Neutrinos with Cherenkov Telescope Array
• Status of the VERITAS Stellar Intensity Interferometry (VSII) System
• X-ray Flux and Spectral Variability of the TeV Blazars Mrk 421 and PKS 2155-304
• VERITAS and VLBA Observations of HESS J1943+213
• Aspects of astrophysical particle production and beyond the Standard Model phenomenology
• First Detection of a Pulsar above 100 GeV
• Observations of ionized carbon towards the $\gamma$-ray-bright supernova remnant RX J1713.7-3946
• The GPSP Atlas: High-resolution Galactic Photon Survival Probability Atlas for Very-High- and Ultra-High-Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy