Improving the performance of the single-dish Cherenkov telescope MAGIC through the use of signal timing

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that incorporating signal timing information and high-speed digitization in the MAGIC Cherenkov telescope significantly reduces background noise and enhances sensitivity to astrophysical sources.

Contribution

It introduces a new analysis method utilizing timing data, leading to improved background rejection and increased flux sensitivity in the MAGIC telescope.

Findings

Background reduced by a factor of two using timing information.

Flux sensitivity to point sources improved by about 1.4 times.

Performance enhancement demonstrated on Crab Nebula observations.

Abstract

The Cherenkov light flashes produced by Extensive Air Showers are very short in time. A high bandwidth and fast digitizing readout, therefore, can minimize the influence of the background from the light of the night sky, and improve the performance in Cherenkov telescopes. The time structure of the Cherenkov image can further be used in single-dish Cherenkov telescopes as an additional parameter to reduce the background from unwanted hadronic showers. A description of an analysis method which makes use of the time information and the subsequent improvement on the performance of the MAGIC telescope (especially after the upgrade with an ultra fast 2 GSamples/s digitization system in February 2007) will be presented. The use of timing information in the analysis of the new MAGIC data reduces the background by a factor two, which in turn results in an enhancement of about a factor 1.4 of the flux sensitivity to point-like sources, as tested on observations of the Crab Nebula.