Related papers: A novel background reduction strategy for high lev…
Galactic cosmic rays are commonly believed to be accelerated at supernova remnants via diffusive shock acceleration. Despite the popularity of this idea, a conclusive proof for its validity is still missing. Gamma-ray astronomy provides us…
Gamma rays from extragalactic sources are attenuated by pair-production interactions with diffuse photons of the extragalactic background light (EBL). Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are a source of high-redshift photons above 10 GeV, and could be…
In order to detect the gamma-ray emission from cosmic ray (CR) interactions with the intra-cluster medium, the ground-based imaging Cherenkov telescope MAGIC conducted the deepest-to-date observational campaign targeting a galaxy cluster at…
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be the world's first observatory for detecting gamma-rays from astrophysical phenomena and is now in its prototyping phase with construction expected to begin in 2015/16. In this work we present the…
Context. We are operating an elastic LIDAR for the monitoring of atmospheric conditions during regular observations of the MAGIC Telescopes. Aims. We present and evaluate methods to convert aerosol extinction profiles, obtained with the…
Atmospheric Cerenkov telescopes are used to detect electromagnetic showers from primary gamma rays of energy ~300 GeV - ~10 TeV and to discriminate these from cascades due to hadrons using the Cerenkov images. The geomagnetic field affects…
Over the last decade, the Imaging Air Cerenkov technique has proven itself to be an extremely powerful means to study very energetic gamma-radiation from a number of astrophysical sources in a regime which is not practically accessible to…
We propose to explore the so-far poorly measured cosmic ray and gamma-ray sky (accelerator sky) in the energy range from 10 TeV to 1 EeV. New physics questions might be addressed in this last remaining observation window of gamma-ray…
The effective observation time of Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) plays an important role in the detection of gamma-ray sources, especially when the expected flux is low. This time is strongly limited by the atmospheric conditions.…
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a project for a next-generation observatory for very high energy (GeV-TeV) ground-based gamma-ray astronomy, currently in its design phase, and foreseen to be operative a few years from now. Several…
We have studied the distribution patterns of lateral density, arrival time and angular position of Cherenkov photons generated in Extensive Air Showers (EASs) initiated by $\gamma$-ray, proton and iron primaries incident with various…
Imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) are used to observe very high-energy photons from the ground. Gamma rays are indirectly detected through the Cherenkov light emitted by the air showers they induce. The new generation of…
A new method of shower-image analysis is presented which appears very powerful as applied to those Cherenkov Imaging Telescopes with very high definition imaging capability. It provides hadron rejection on the basis of a single cut on the…
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the new-generation ground-based observatory for $\gamma$-ray astronomy, provides unique capabilities to address significant open questions in astrophysics, cosmology, and fundamental physics. We study…
Until April 2007 the MAGIC telescope used a 300 MSamples/s FADC system to sample the shaped PMT signals produced by the captured Cherenkov photons of air showers. Different algorithms to reconstruct the signal from the read-out samples…
Imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes (IACTs) such as the Major Atmospheric Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov (MAGIC) telescopes endeavor to reach the lowest possible energy threshold. In doing so the trigger system is a key element. Reducing…
Current detectors for Very-High-Energy $\gamma$-ray astrophysics are either pointing instruments with a small field of view (Cherenkov telescopes), or large field-of-view instruments with relatively large energy thresholds (extensive air…
Remote sensing of atmosphere is conventionally done via a study of extinction / scattering of light from natural (Sun, Moon) or artificial (laser) sources. Cherenkov emission from extensive air showers generated by cosmic rays provides one…
The last 20 years have seen the development of new techniques in Astroparticle Physics providing access to the highest end of the electromagnetic spectrum. It has been shown that some sources emit photons up to energies close to 100 TeV.…
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…