Anne TImmermans  (Netherlands)

anne.timmermans @ mpi-hd.mpg.de

FlashCam development and gamma-ray bursts with HESS and CTA

The Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO) is the next generation observatory for very high energy gamma-ray astronomy. The observatory will consist of two sites, one in the northern and one in the southern hemisphere. The southern CTA site will have multiple types of telescopes, large, small and medium size telescopes (MSTs). This allows to observe in a broad energy range, from tens of GeV to hundreds of TeV. The camera for the MSTs on this site will be FlashCam. Before installation in Chile (which is planned for 2026), the camera needs to be fully characterized and calibrated. The goal is to develop a calibration box (based on LED flashers) to do this calibration of the camera.

A prototype of Flashcam is also implemented in CT5 in HESS (a cherenkov telescope array in Namibia), pushing the energy limits down. This allows for more precise measurements on objects that are harder to detect with the higher energy limits, such as gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). To take full advantage of this, the goal is to include CT5 in the analysis of these GRBs to gain more insight in these still ill understood objects.

Supervisor:    James Hinton  (MPIK)