# Prospects for the detection of high-energy (E>25 GeV) Fermi pulsars with the Cherenkov Telescope Array

## TL;DR

This study forecasts the potential for the Cherenkov Telescope Array to detect high-energy gamma-ray pulsars identified by Fermi-LAT, aiming to understand pulsar emission mechanisms at very high energies.

## Contribution

It provides a detailed simulation-based analysis predicting CTA's capability to detect high-energy pulsars, extending previous observations and exploring their VHE emission.

## Key findings

- Up to 8 pulsars could be detected with CTA in 50 hours.
- Simulations suggest significant detection prospects for high-energy pulsars.
- Analysis supports the potential to study pulsar emission mechanisms at VHE.

## Abstract

Around 160 gamma-ray pulsars were discovered by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) since 2008. The most energetic of them, 12 objects with emission above 25 GeV, are suitable candidates for the detection with the current and future Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes above few tens of GeV. We perform an analysis of the Fermi-LAT data of these high-energy pulsars in order to determine if such objects can be detected with the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). Our goal is to forecast the significance of their point source detection with CTA. We analyze 5 years of the Fermi-LAT data fitting the spectra of each pulsar at energies E>10 GeV with a power-law function. Assuming no spectral cut-off, we extrapolate the resulting spectra to the very high energy range (VHE, E>0.1 TeV) and simulate CTA observations of all 12 pulsars with the ctools software package. Using different analysis tools, individual CTA sensitivity curves are independently calculated for each pulsar and cross-checked with the ctools results. Our simulations result in significant CTA detections of up to 8 pulsars in 50 h. Observations of the most energetic Fermi pulsars with CTA will shed light on the nature of the high-energy emission of pulsars, clarifying whether the VHE emission detected in the Crab pulsar spectrum is present also in other gamma-ray pulsars.