Study on optimization of water Cherenkov detector array of LHAASO project for surveying VHE gamma rays sources

TL;DR

This paper presents a simulation-based optimization study for the design of the LHAASO-WCDA water Cherenkov detector array, aiming to efficiently survey VHE gamma-ray sources in the northern sky within a specified energy range.

Contribution

It introduces a Monte Carlo simulation approach to optimize the detector array configuration for cost-effectiveness and performance in gamma-ray source surveying.

Findings

Optimal array configurations identified through simulation

Cost-performance trade-offs analyzed for different designs

Guidelines provided for detailed future design steps

Abstract

A water Cherenkov detector array, LHAASO-WCDA, is proposed to be built at Shangri-la, Yunnan Province, China. As one of the major components of the LHAASO project, the main purpose of it is to survey the northern sky for gamma ray sources in the energy range from 100 GeV to 30 TeV. In order to design the water Cherenkov array efficiently to economize the budget, a Monte Carlo simulation is proceeded. With the help of the simulation, cost performance of different configurations of the array is obtained and compared with each other, serving as a guide for the more detailed design of the experiment in the next step.