The Status and future of ground-based TeV gamma-ray astronomy. A White Paper prepared for the Division of Astrophysics of the American Physical Society

TL;DR

This white paper reviews recent advances in ground-based TeV gamma-ray astronomy, discusses future scientific goals, technological needs, and outlines a path for developing next-generation observatories to explore cosmic phenomena and dark matter.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of current achievements, future science objectives, and technological challenges for ground-based TeV gamma-ray observatories, guiding future development.

Findings

Detection of diverse galactic gamma-ray sources

Observation of rapid gamma-ray flares from active galaxies

Potential to map dark matter annihilation signals

Abstract

In recent years, ground-based TeV gamma-ray observatories have made spectacular discoveries including imaging spectroscopy observations of galactic sources of different classes, and the discovery of rapid gamma-ray flares from radio galaxies and active galactic nuclei containing supermassive black holes. These discoveries, and the fact that gamma-ray astronomy has the potential to map the radiation from dark matter annihilation in our Galaxy and in extragalactic systems, have attracted the attention of the wider scientific community. The Division of Astrophysics of the American Physical Society requested the preparation of a white paper on the status and future of ground-based gamma-ray astronomy to define the science goals of a future observatory, to determine the performance specifications, to identify the areas of necessary technology development, and to lay out a clear path for proceeding beyond the near term. The white paper was written with broad community input, including discussions on several dedicated open meetings, and a number of APS or other conferences. It contains an executive summary, detailed reports from the science working groups, and appendices with supplementary material including the full author lists for the different sections of the white paper and a glossary.