Related papers: Cosmic-Ray Events as Background in Imaging Atmosph…
Hadronic cosmic particles (cosmic rays) and gamma rays are constantly absorbed in the Earth's atmosphere and result in air showers of secondary particles. Cherenkov radiation from these atmospheric events is used to measure cosmic gamma…
The observation of cosmic gamma-rays from the ground is based upon the detection of gamma-ray initiated air showers. At energies between approximately $10^{11}$ eV and $10^{13}$ eV, the imaging air Cherenkov technique is a particularly…
The Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov technique allows to detect very high energy gamma rays from few tens of GeV to hundreds of TeV using ground-based instrumentation. At these energies a gamma ray generates a shower of secondary particles…
The details of Cerenkov light produced by a gamma ray or a cosmic ray incident at the top of the atmosphere is best studied through systematic simulations of the extensive air showers. Recently such studies have become all the more…
During the last decade ground-based very high-energy gamma-ray astronomy achieved a remarkable advancement in the development of the observational technique for the registration and study of gamma-ray emission above 100 GeV. It is widely…
The gamma/hadron separation in the imaging air Cherenkov telescope technique is based on differences between images of a hadronic shower and a gamma induced electromagnetic cascade. One may expect for a large telescope that a detection of…
The atmosphere is an intrinsic part of any ground based Cherenkov gamma-ray telescope, and the telescope response is therefore sensitive to unpredictable changes in the atmospheric transparency which are difficult to measure and interpret…
The fields of cosmic ray astrophysics, gamma-ray astrophysics, and neutrino astrophysics have diverged somewhat. But for the air showers in the GeV and TeV energy ranges, the ground-based detector techniques have considerable overlaps. VHE…
In this paper we present a new method for ground based gamma ray astronomy based only on atmospheric Cherenkov light flux analysis. The Cherenkov light flux densities in extensive air showers (EAS) initiated by different primaries are…
The identification of gamma-ray induced air showers with Cherenkov telescopes suffers from contamination with a specific class of cosmic ray induced air showers. The predictions for this background show strong discrepancies between the…
Observations with the Cherenkov telescopes are in principle limited to the clear sky conditions due to significant absorption of Cherenkov light by clouds. If the cloud level is high enough or the atmospheric transmission of the cloud is…
The time profiles of Cherenkov images of cosmic-ray showers and of gamma-ray showers are investigated, using data gathered with the HEGRA system of imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes during the 1997 outbursts of Mrk 501. Photon…
Ground-based Imaging Cherenkov Telescope Arrays observe the Cherenkov radiation emitted in extended atmospheric showers generated by cosmic gamma rays in the TeV regime. The rate of these events is normally overwhelmed by 2-3 orders of…
A new method of investigating ultra-high energy cosmic ray sources is suggested. The method is based on analysis of gamma-ray emission that is generated in extragalactic space when ultra-high energy cosmic particles interact with cosmic…
Many of the basic problems in the astrophysics of charged Cosmic Rays remain on principle unresolved by in situ observations in the Solar System due to the chaotic nature of the propagation of these particles in Interstellar space. This…
Atmospheric Cerenkov telescopes are used to detect electromagnetic showers from primary gamma rays of energy > 300 GeV and to discriminate these from cascades due to hadrons using the shape and orientation of the Cerenkov images. The…
At present the ground-based Very High Energy (VHE) gamma-ray astronomy is racing to complete construction of a number of modern gamma-ray detectors, i.e. CANGAROO III, MAGIC, H.E.S.S., and VERITAS. They should be fully operational in a…
Cosmic ray electrons represent a background for gamma-ray observations with Cherenkov telescopes, initiating air-showers which are difficult to distinguish from photon-initiated showers. This similarity, however, and the presence of cosmic…
Telescopes, designed with semi-conductor based photo sensors, have the potential to detect Cherenkov or fluorescence light emitted by cosmic-rays in the atmosphere. Such telescopes promise a high duty cycle and efficiency in remote harsh…
In this paper we describe the different software and hardware elements of a mini-telescope for the detection of cosmic rays and gamma-rays using the Cherenkov light emitted by their induced particle showers in the atmosphere. We estimate…