Abstract
ASTRI (“Astronomia a Specchi con Tecnologia Replicante Italiana”) is a flagship project of the Italian Ministry of Research (MIUR), devoted to the realization, operation and scientific validation of an end-to-end prototype for the Small Size Telescope (SST) envisaged to become part of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). The ASTRI SST-2M telescope prototype is characterized by a dual mirror, Schwarzschild-Couder optical design and a compact camera based on silicon photo-multipliers. It will be sensitive to multi-TeV very high energy (VHE) gamma rays up to 100 TeV, with a PSF ~ 6’ and a wide (9.6°) unaberrated optical field of view. Right after validation of the design in single-dish observations at the Serra La Nave site (Sicily, Italy) during 2015, the ASTRI collaboration will be able to start deployment, at the final CTA southern site, of the ASTRI mini-array, proposed to constitute the very first CTA precursor. Counting 9 ASTRI SST-2M telescopes, the ASTRI mini-array will overtake current IACT systems in differential sensitivity above 5 TeV, thus allowing unprecedented observations of known and predicted bright TeV emitters in this band, including some extragalactic sources such as extreme high-peaked BL Lacs with hard spectra. We exploited the ASTRI scientific simulator ASTRIsim in order to understand the feasibility of observations tackling blazar and cosmic ray physics, including discrimination of hadronic and leptonic scenarios for the VHE emission from BL Lac relativistic jets and indirect measurements of the intergalactic magnetic field and of the extragalactic background light. We selected favorable targets, outlining observation modes, exposure times, multi-wavelength coverage needed and the results expected. Moreover, the perspectives for observation of effects due to the existence of axion-like particles or to Lorentz invariance violations have been investigated.
Highlights
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) project is an initiative to build the generation ground-based very high-energy gamma-ray instrument [1]
We find that for mass scales MQG in the range 3 × 1019 GeV ≤ MQG ≤ 1020 GeV the expected excess distribution in 100 h is well separated from the standard EBL-absorbed case (Figure 2, right panel)
Some test cases have been investigated, namely a flare from the nearby bright blazar Mrk 501 similar to the ones already observed by HEGRA in 1997 or more recently by VERITAS and ARGO in 2009, and deep observations of the Extreme HBLs (EHBL) 1ES 0229+200
Summary
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) project is an initiative to build the generation ground-based very high-energy gamma-ray instrument [1]. Fracastoro” observing station in Serra La Nave (Mount Etna, Sicily) was recently inaugurated during the CTA Consortium Meeting held in the nearby Giardini Naxos in September 2014 This prototype is currently being tested under field conditions, and will soon start the Scientific Verification Phase eventually aiming to assess the instrument performance by means of observations targeted at bright TeV sources such as the calibration standard Crab Nebula and the bright extragalactic sources Mrk 421 and Mrk 501. While the sensitivity is significantly worse than that of the full SST array planned for CTA, energy and angular resolution are closer to the ones for the 70 telescopes This is due to the fact that few events are expected to trigger more than 9 units for the assumed 257 m spacing, and the accuracy in the reconstruction of each shower image is not improved by adding telescopes, while event statistics grows with the extension of the array. More details on the ASTRI mini-array can be found in [4] and references therein
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