Performance of the Cherenkov Telescope Array in the presence of clouds
Mario Pecimotika, Katarzyna Adamczyk, Dijana Dominis Prester, Orel, Gueta, Dario Hrupec, Gernot Maier, Sa\v{s}a Mi\'canovi\'c, Lovro Pavleti\'c,, Julian Sitarek, Dorota Sobczy\'nska, Micha{\l} Szanecki

TL;DR
This paper evaluates how clouds affect the performance of the Cherenkov Telescope Array, using simulations to understand the impact on gamma-ray detection and proposing methods to analyze data collected under cloudy conditions.
Contribution
It introduces a simulation-based analysis of atmospheric cloud effects on CTA performance and presents a method to analyze high-energy data in cloudy conditions.
Findings
Clouds mainly affect low-energy gamma-ray detection near the threshold.
High-energy gamma rays can still trigger telescopes if interactions occur below cloud base.
The proposed analysis method accounts for systematic uncertainties in cloudy conditions.
Abstract
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the future ground-based observatory for gamma-ray astronomy at very high energies. The atmosphere is an integral part of every Cherenkov telescope. Different atmospheric conditions, such as clouds, can reduce the fraction of Cherenkov photons produced in air showers that reach ground-based telescopes, which may affect the performance. Decreased sensitivity of the telescopes may lead to misconstructed energies and spectra. This study presents the impact of various atmospheric conditions on CTA performance. The atmospheric transmission in a cloudy atmosphere in the wavelength range from 203 nm to 1000 nm was simulated for different cloud bases and different optical depths using the MODerate resolution atmospheric TRANsmission (MODTRAN) code. MODTRAN output files were used as inputs for generic Monte Carlo simulations. The analysis was performed using…
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