Experimental approaches for 100 TeV gamma-ray astronomy

Abstract

The high energy end of gamma-ray source spectra might provide important clues regarding the nature of the processes involved in gamma-ray emission. Several galactic sources with hard emission spectra extending up to more than 30TeV have already been reported. Measurements around 100TeV and above should be an important goal for the next generation of high energy gamma-ray astronomy experiments. Here we present several techniques providing the required exposure (100 km^2.h). We focus our study on three Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Technique (IACT) based approaches: low elevation observations, large field of view telescopes, and large telescope arrays. We comment on the advantages and disadvantages of each approach and report simulation based estimates of their energy ranges and sensitivities.

arXiv comment3 pages 1 figure. Proceedings of TeV particle astrophysics 2, Madison, August 2006. http://www.icecube.wisc.edu/TeV/presentations/colin_poster.pdf

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• The First VERITAS Telescope
• The Crab Nebula and Pulsar between 500 GeV and 80 TeV: Observations with the HEGRA stereoscopic air Cherenkov telescopes
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Cited by in corpus (3)

• Optimization of large homogeneous air Cherenkov arrays and application to the design of a 1TeV-100TeV gamma-ray observatory
• Performance of a Small Array of Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes sited in Australia
• Optimising an Array of Cherenkov Telescopes in Australia for the Detection of TeV Gamma-Ray Transients