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CTA Releases its Updated Science Case

27 septembre 2017

September 24th, 2017 — The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be the foremost global observatory for very high-energy gamma-ray astronomy over the next decade and beyond. More than 500 scientists have worked during the recent years to write its science case, and the latest iteration was made available on September 24, on the arXiv.

CTA will address a wide range of topics in astrophysics and fundamental physics, aiming at understanding the origin and role of relativistic cosmic particles, probing extreme environments and exploring frontiers in physics.
It will cover an enormous range in photon energy from 20 GeV to 300 TeV. Its wider field of view and improved sensitivity will enable CTA to survey hundreds of times faster than previous TeV telescopes.

Figure 1 : Simulation de la carte du ciel obtenue avec le survey du plan de la Voie lactée avec CTA.
Credit : CTA

As shown in the simulated map of our Milky Way galaxy in Figure 1, CTA will discover more Galactic sources for improved population studies and for advancing our understanding of the origin of cosmic rays. In addition to searching for the elusive dark matter, it will detect transient phenomena like gamma-ray bursts and gravitational wave events associated with compact objects mergers in the Universe.

Reference

  • The Cherenkov Telescope Array Consortium, 2017, Science with the Cherenkov Telescope Array, arXiv

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