CTA - A Project for a New Generation of Cherenkov Telescopes

TL;DR

The paper discusses the design and development of CTA, a next-generation Cherenkov Telescope Array aimed at significantly enhancing gamma-ray astronomy capabilities with improved sensitivity and energy coverage.

Contribution

It introduces the design considerations, technical solutions, and project status for a new automated telescope array to advance very-high-energy gamma-ray observations.

Findings

Design considerations for CTA are outlined.

Technical solutions for telescope automation are presented.

Project status and physics insights are provided.

Abstract

Gamma-rays provide a powerful insight into the non-thermal universe and perhaps a unique probe for new physics beyond the standard model. Current experiments are already giving results in the physics of acceleration of cosmic rays in supernova remnants, pulsar and active galactic nuclei with almost a hundred sources detected at very-high-energies so far. Despite its relatively recent appearance, very high-energy gamma-ray astronomy has proven to have reached a mature technology with fast assembling, relatively cheap and reliable telescopes. The goal of future installation is to increase the sensitivity by a factor ten compared to current installations, and enlarge the energy domain from few tens of GeV to a hundred TeV. Gamma-ray spectra of astrophysical origin are rather soft thus hardly one single size telescope can cover more than 1.5 decades in energy, therefore an array of telescopes of 2,3 different sizes is required. Hereafter, we present design considerations for a Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), a project for a new generation of highly automated telescopes for gamma-ray astronomy. The status of the project, technical solutions and an insight in the involved physics will be presented.