Galactic Observatory Science with the ASTRI Mini-Array at the Observatorio del Teide

TL;DR

The ASTRI Mini-Array, consisting of nine Cherenkov telescopes at Observatorio del Teide, will conduct high-energy astrophysical observations, focusing on key Galactic sources and providing extensive sky coverage for long-term scientific studies.

Contribution

This paper reviews the ASTRI Mini-Array's capabilities and presents simulation results demonstrating its performance in observing Galactic environments and sources.

Findings

Array achieves high angular and energy resolution.

Simulations show effective performance at large offset angles.

The array will enable comprehensive Galactic astrophysics studies.

Abstract

The ASTRI (Astrofisica con Specchi a Tecnologia Replicante Italiana) Mini-Array will be composed of nine imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes at the Observatorio del Teide site. The array will be best suited for astrophysical observations in the 0.3-200 TeV range with an angular resolution of few arc-minutes and an energy resolution of 10-15\%. A core-science programme in the first four years will be devoted to a limited number of key targets, addressing the most important open scientific questions in the very-high energy domain. At the same time, thanks to a wide field of view of about 10 degrees, ASTRI Mini-Array will observe many additional field sources, which will constitute the basis for the long-term observatory programme that will eventually cover all the accessible sky. In this paper, we review different astrophysical Galactic environments, e.g. pulsar wind nebulae, supernova remnants, and gamma-ray binaries, and show the results from a set of ASTRI Mini-Array simulations of some of these field sources made to highlight the expected performance of the array (even at large offset angles) and the important additional observatory science that will complement the core-science program.