This image illustrates all three classes of the 99 telescopes planned for the southern hemisphere as viewed from the centre of the array \u00a9 Gabriel P\u00e9rez Diaz, IAC\/Marc-Andr\u00e9 Besel, CTAO<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nWhat are the science goals in terms of the search for dark matter, and what do you hope will come from the planned survey of the Galactic Centre?<\/h3>\n One of the main science goals of CTA is to shed light on the nature of dark matter. While it is almost certain that dark matter exists \u2013 and, indeed, in far higher quantities than normal matter, given its measured gravitational effects \u2013 almost nothing is known about what it actually is.<\/p>\n
Long-standing dark matter candidates are the weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), with a mass of 100-1,000 times the mass of a proton (100 GeV-1 TeV, approximately).<\/p>\n
WIMPs can be discovered via their production in particle collisions detectors (like in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva), but also through astrophysical observations. The main idea of the latter is that in regions of the Universe where dark matter density is high, dark matter particles could self-annihilate or decay, producing more familiar particles that would reach us in the form of cosmic rays, as well as gamma rays.<\/p>\n
Thus, CTA will use its unprecedented sensitivity and energy resolution to capture gamma rays exactly over the energy range that corresponds to the heavier end of the WIMP masses, which remains largely unexplored.<\/p>\n
The Galactic Center is certainly one of the best sky regions to look for DM signatures, since it is expected to host a high density of dark matter. In particular, the planned deep survey of the Galactic Center will enable CTA to reach the expected thermal relic cross-section for self-annihilating WIMPs, thus exploring the \u2018Holy Grail\u2019 region of the WIMP scenario in detail for the first time in an unrivaled way.<\/p>\n
Beyond WIMPs, CTA will also play a major role in exploring the currently inaccessible axion-like particles, i.e. another theoretically well-motivated DM candidate. Once more CTA will use its unprecedented sensitivity and energy resolution to probe possible enhancements of the TeV photon flux from very distant extragalactic sources, i.e. Active Galactic Nuclei or Gamma Ray Bursts. Competing with the gamma ray absorption on the lower energy Extragalactic Background Light (EBL) photons, such a flux enhancement could provide a smoking-gun signature of photons\/axion-like particles coupling along their long journey, under the influence of intergalactic magnetic fields.<\/p>\n
What does the recent detection of the Crab Pulsar mean for the LST-1? Why is this significant, and how does it lend hope for the future?<\/h3>\n The recent detection of the Crab Pulsar by the LST prototype is an important milestone for the CTA construction project showing that this telescope, although still in its commissioning phase, is already performing well from a scientific point of view, detecting a challenging source in record time.<\/p>\n
Technically, this result verifies the timestamping system and represents a first important step towards the validation of the low-energy performance of the LST.<\/p>\n
Pulsars have recently been promoted to key scientific targets for CTA after their establishment as a new class of VHE gamma-ray emitters, at odds with any existing theoretical understanding of gamma-ray pulsars. The discovery of pulsations up to TeV energies opened a new window in pulsar physics, whose deep exploration can be reached for CTA thanks its unprecedented sensitivity, especially in the low-energy range covered by the LSTs. In that respect, the detection of the Crab pulsar by the LST-1 paves the way for high-impact discoveries in the pulsar field by CTA.<\/p>\n
What is the next step for the CTA?<\/h3>\n The next step is now to get CTA up and running. We are also planning to validate its scientific performance at incremental stages, thus already producing good quality science data during the construction phase. This will allow for the exploitation of the new discovery space of CTA since the very beginning, that, especially in the Northern site where we plan to build the other three LSTs in the coming three years, will impact the field of the time domain astronomy.<\/p>\n
Dr Roberta Zanin<\/strong> \nProject Scientist<\/strong> \nCherenkov Telescope Array <\/strong> \nObservatory (CTAO)<\/strong> \nroberta.zanin@cta-observatory.org<\/strong><\/a> \nTweet @CTA_Observatory<\/a><\/strong> \n www.cta-observatory.org<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nPlease note, this article will also appear in the third edition of our <\/strong><\/em>new quarterly publication<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CTAO Project Scientist, Dr Roberta Zanin, spoke to The Innovation Platform about the Cherenkov Telescope Array\u2019s role in areas such as dark matter detection, gravitational wave observation, and multi-messenger astronomy. Once operational, the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be ten times more sensitive than current-generation ground-based gamma-ray detectors. It will also have unprecedented accuracy in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6981,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[766,24429],"tags":[801,529,821,19351],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
CTAO and the high energy Universe | Innovation News Network<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n