Photon Reconstruction for H.E.S.S. Using a Semi-Analytical Shower Model

TL;DR

This paper presents an adapted semi-analytical shower model analysis technique for the H.E.S.S. gamma-ray observatory, improving event reconstruction for its diverse telescope array and enhancing sensitivity at high energies.

Contribution

The paper introduces a modified semi-analytical shower model analysis method tailored for the five-telescope H.E.S.S. array, enabling improved gamma-ray event reconstruction.

Findings

Enhanced reconstruction accuracy in monoscopic and stereoscopic modes.

Improved sensitivity at high energies due to the new analysis method.

Standard analysis technique successfully adapted for diverse telescope types.

Abstract

The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) is an array of five Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) designed to detect cosmogenic gamma-rays with very high energies. Originally consisting of just four identical IACTs (CT1-4) with an effective mirror diameter of 12$\,$m each, it was expanded with a fifth IACT (CT5) with a mirror diameter of 28$\,$m in 2012. Being the largest IACT worldwide, CT5 allows to lower the energy threshold of H.E.S.S., making the array sensitive at energies where space-based detectors run out of statistics. Events can be analysed either monoscopically (i.e. using only information of CT5) or stereoscopically (requiring at least two triggered telescopes per event). To achieve a good performance, a sophisticated event reconstruction and analysis framework is indispensable. This is particularly important for H.E.S.S. since it is now the first IACT array that consists of different telescope types. An advanced reconstruction method is based on a semi-analytical model of electromagnetic particle showers in the atmosphere (model analysis). The properties of the primary particle are reconstructed by comparing the image recorded by each triggered telescope with the Cherenkov emission from the shower model using a log-likelihood maximisation. Due to its performance, this method has become one of the standard analysis techniques applied to CT1-4 data. Now it has been modified for use with the five-telescope array. We present the adapted model analysis and its performance in both monoscopic and stereoscopic analysis mode.