The Central Trigger System of the H.E.S.S. Telescope Array

Abstract

The High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) is a new system of large atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes for GeV/TeV γ‐ray astronomy. This paper describes the array level trigger system of H.E.S.S. The system trigger requires the simultaneous detection of air‐showers by several telescopes at the hardware level. This requirement allows a suppression of background events which in turn leads to a lower system energy threshold for the detection of gamma‐rays.