CELESTE: an atmospheric Cherenkov telescope for high energy gamma astrophysics

Paré, E.; Balauge, B.; Bazer‐Bachi, R.; Bergeret, H.; Berny, F.; Briand, N.; Bruel, Pascal; Cerutti, M.; Collon, J.; Cordier, A.; Cornebise, P.; Debiais, G.; Dezalay, J. P.; Dumora, D.; Durand, E.; Eschstruth, P.; Espigat, P.; Fabre, B.; Fleury, P.; Gilly, J.; Gouillaud, J.C.; Grégory, C.; Herault, N.; Holder, J.; Hrabovský, M.; Incerti, S.; Jouenne, A; Kalt, L.; Legallou, R.; Lott, B.; Lodygensky, Oleg; Manigot, P.; Manseri, H.; Manitaz, H.; Martin, Michel; Morano, R.; Morineaud, G.; Münz, F.; Musquère, A.; Naurois, M. de; Neveu, J.; Noppe, J.M.; Olive, J.‐F.; Palatka, M.; Perez, A.; Québert, J.; Rebii, Abdel; Reposeur, T.; Rob, L.; Roy, P.; Sans, Jordi; Sako, T. K.; Schovánek, Petr; Smith, David A.; Snabre, P.; Villard, G.

doi:10.1016/s0168-9002(02)01005-7

Cited by 27 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…The latter approach has been pursued by a number of groups including the C.A.C.T.U.S. (Marleau et al 2005), CELESTE (Paré et al 2002) as well as STACEE (D. M. Gingrich et al 2005).…”

Section: Shower-front Sampling Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

High‐(Energy)‐Lights The Very High Energy Gamma‐Ray Sky

Horns

2008

Reviews in Modern Astronomy

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The high-lights of ground-based very-high-energy (VHE, E > 100 GeV) gammaray astronomy are reviewed. The summary covers both Galactic and extragalactic sources. Implications for our understanding of the non-thermal Universe are discussed. Identified VHE sources include various types of supernova remnants (shell-type, mixed morphology, composite) including pulsar wind nebulae, and X-ray binary systems. A diverse population of VHE-emitting Galactic sources include regions of active star formation (young stellar associations), and massive molecular clouds. Different types of active galactic nuclei have been found to emit VHE gamma-rays: besides predominantly Blazar-type objects, a radio-galaxy and a flat-spectrum radio-quasar have been discovered. Finally, many (presumably Galactic) sources have no convincing counterpart and remain at this point unidentified. A total of at least 70 sources are currently known. The next generation of ground based gamma-ray instruments aims to cover the entire accessible energy range from as low as ≈ 10 GeV up to 10 5 GeV and to improve the sensitivity by an order of magnitude in comparison with current instruments.

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“…The latter approach has been pursued by a number of groups including the C.A.C.T.U.S. (Marleau et al 2005), CELESTE (Paré et al 2002) as well as STACEE (D. M. Gingrich et al 2005).…”

Section: Shower-front Sampling Techniquesmentioning

confidence: 99%

High‐(Energy)‐Lights The Very High Energy Gamma‐Ray Sky

Horns

2008

Reviews in Modern Astronomy

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“…II telescope has a diameter of 28 m, achieving threshold trigger energies of ∼50 GeV and ∼20 GeV, respectively [5,7]. It is, however, known from an internal CTA study that the construction cost of a large IACT increases roughly by a power of 1.35 as the mirror area increases [23]; thus, maximizing the collection efficiency of camera pixels using a less expensive technology to produce light concentrators is a cost-effective way to build a number of IACTs.The focal-plane cameras of IACTs are covered by UV-sensitive photodetector pixels on which hexagonal light concentrators are usually attached to reduce the dead area between photodetectors [6,10,12,19,21]. Compound parabolic concentrators (CPC or so-called Winston cones) [26] with hexagonal entrance apertures have been widely used in IACTs for this purpose because they can selectively guide photons coming from the telescope-mirror direction to the sensitive area of photodetectors and because those from directions outside the mirror are rejected efficiently at the same time.The use of Winston cones in IACTs was first proposed for the CAT experiment in 1994 [20].…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The focal-plane cameras of IACTs are covered by UV-sensitive photodetector pixels on which hexagonal light concentrators are usually attached to reduce the dead area between photodetectors [6,10,12,19,21]. Compound parabolic concentrators (CPC or so-called Winston cones) [26] with hexagonal entrance apertures have been widely used in IACTs for this purpose because they can selectively guide photons coming from the telescope-mirror direction to the sensitive area of photodetectors and because those from directions outside the mirror are rejected efficiently at the same time.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Prototyping hexagonal light concentrators using high-reflectance specular films for the large-sized telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

et al. 2017

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A: We have developed a prototype hexagonal light concentrator for the Large-Sized Telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array. To maximize the photodetection efficiency of the focal-plane camera pixels for atmospheric Cherenkov photons and to lower the energy threshold, a specular film with a very high reflectance of 92-99% has been developed to cover the inner surfaces of the light concentrators. The prototype has a relative anode sensitivity (which can be roughly regarded as collection efficiency) of about 95 to 105% at the most important angles of incidence. The design, simulation, production procedure, and performance measurements of the light-concentrator prototype are reported.

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“…The CELESTE experiment [Paré 2002] used the heliostats of a decommissioned solar farm Themis (42.50 • N, 1.97 • E, 1650 m asl) in the French Pyrénées to detect gamma-ray induced air showers. CELESTE was used from 1997 to 2004.…”

Section: Heliostats As Cherenkov Light Detectors: Celeste Stacee Grmentioning

confidence: 99%

Very-High Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy: A 23-Year Success Story in Astroparticle Physics

Lorenz

Wagner

2012

From Ultra Rays to Astroparticles

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Very-high energy (VHE) gamma quanta contribute only a minuscule fraction -below one per million -to the flux of cosmic rays. Nevertheless, being neutral particles they are currently the best "messengers" of processes from the relativistic/ultra-relativistic Universe because they can be extrapolated back to their origin. The window of VHE gamma rays was opened only in 1989 by the Whipple collaboration, reporting the observation of TeV gamma rays from the Crab nebula. After a slow start, this new field of research is now rapidly expanding with the discovery of more than 150 VHE gamma-ray emitting sources. Progress is intimately related with the steady improvement of detectors and rapidly increasing computing power. We give an overview of the early attempts before and around 1989 and the progress after the pioneering work of the Whipple collaboration. The main focus of this article is on the development of experimental techniques for Earth-bound gamma-ray detectors; consequently, more emphasis is given to those experiments that made an initial breakthrough rather than to the successors which often had and have a similar (sometimes even higher) scientific output as the pioneering experiments. The considered energy threshold is about 30 GeV. At lower energies, observations can presently only be performed with balloon or satellite-borne detectors. Irrespective of the stormy experimental progress, the success story could not have been called a success story without a broad scientific output. Therefore we conclude this article with a summary of the scientific rationales and main results achieved over the last two decades. arXiv:1207.6003v1 [physics.hist-ph] 25 Jul 2012Very-high energy gamma-ray astronomy 3 b) Decay of neutral pions produced in hadronic interactions:Accelerated protons or heavier nucleons interact with ambient protons, nucleons or photons in stellar environments or cosmic gas clouds. Dominantly, charged and neutral pions are produced. Charged pions decay in a two-step process into electrons and two neutrinos while neutral pions decay with > 99% probability into two gamma quanta. For proton-nucleus interactions one has: p + nucleus → p . . . + π ± + π 0 + . . . and π 0 → 2γ; π → µν µ ; µ → eν µ ν e .Heavier secondary mesons, much rarer, normally decay in a variety of lighter ones and eventually mostly into π ± and π 0 and/or γ.Spectra and morphology of gamma-ray emissions can provide only circumstantial evidence for either leptonic or hadronic origin of the gamma rays, while the observation of neutrinos would be an unambiguous proof for hadronic acceleration processes in the source. The long road to the discovery of the first VHE-emitting gamma-ray sourceThe main driving force for VHE gamma-ray astronomy was initially the search for the sources of the charged cosmic rays, while now, after the discovery of many sources, the interests have shifted to general astrophysics questions. In earlier times the searches were hampered by a few fundamental questions:1. How large is the fraction of cosmic γ rays of the ...

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CELESTE: an atmospheric Cherenkov telescope for high energy gamma astrophysics

Cited by 27 publications

References 24 publications

High‐(Energy)‐Lights The Very High Energy Gamma‐Ray Sky

High‐(Energy)‐Lights The Very High Energy Gamma‐Ray Sky

Prototyping hexagonal light concentrators using high-reflectance specular films for the large-sized telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Very-High Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy: A 23-Year Success Story in Astroparticle Physics

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