arXiv subjects

M. Punch

Publications and source records attributed to M. Punch.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2021

Origin and role of relativistic cosmic particles

This white paper briefly summarizes the importance of the study of relativistic cosmic rays, both as a constituent of our Universe, and through their impact on stellar and galactic evolution. The focus is on what can be learned over the coming decade through ground-based gamma-ray observations over the 20 GeV to 300 TeV range. The majority of the material is drawn directly from "Science with the Cherenkov Telescope Array", which describes the overall science case for CTA. We request that authors wishing to cite results contained in this white paper cite the original work.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2021

Signal extraction in atmospheric shower arrays designed for $\rm 200\,GeV-50\,TeV$ $γ$-ray astronomy

We present the SEMLA (Signal Extraction using Machine Learning for ALTO) analysis method, developed for the detection of $\rm E>200\,GeV$ $γ$ rays in the context of the ALTO wide-field-of-view atmospheric shower array R&D project. The scientific focus of ALTO is extragalactic $γ$-ray astronomy, so primarily the detection of soft-spectrum $γ$-ray sources such as Active Galactic Nuclei and Gamma Ray Bursts. The current phase of the ALTO R&D project is the optimization of sensitivity for such sources and includes a number of ideas which are tested and evaluated through the analysis of dedicated Monte Carlo simulations and hardware testing. In this context, it is important to clarify how data are analysed and how results are being obtained. SEMLA takes advantage of machine learning and comprises four stages: initial event cleaning (stage A), filtering out of poorly reconstructed $γ$-ray events (stage B), followed by $γ$-ray signal extraction from proton background events (stage C) and finally reconstructing the energy of the events (stage D). The performance achieved through SEMLA is evaluated in terms of the angular, shower core position, and energy resolution, together with the effective detection area, and background suppression. Our methodology can be easily generalized to any experiment, provided that the signal extraction variables for the specific analysis project are considered.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2017

TiCkS: A Flexible White-Rabbit Based Time-Stamping Board

We have developed the TiCkS board (Time and Clock Stamping) based on the White Rabbit (WR) SPEC node (Simple PCIe FMC carrier), to provide ns-precision time-stamps (TSs) of input signals (e.g., triggers from a connected device) and transmission of these TSs to a central collection point. TiCkS was developed within the specifications of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) as one of the candidate TS nodes, with a small form-factor allowing its use in any CTA camera. The essence of this development concerns the firmware in its Spartan-6 FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array), with the addition of: 1) a ns-precision TDC (Time-to-Digital Convertor) for the TSs; and 2) a UDP stack (User Datagram Protocol) to send TSs and auxiliary information over the WR fibre, and to receive configuration & slow control commands over the same fibre. It also provides a PPS (Pulse Per Second) and other clock signals to the connected device, from which it can receive auxiliary event-type information over an SPI link (Serial Peripheral Interface). A version of TiCkS with an FMC connector (FPGA Mezzanine Card) will be made available in the WR OpenHardware repository, so allowing the use of a mezzanine card with varied formats of input/output connectors, providing a cheap, flexible, and reliable solution for ns-precision time-stamping of trigger signals up to 400 kHz, for use in other experiments.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2015

Status and Plans for the Array Control and Data Acquisition System of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next-generation atmospheric Cherenkov gamma-ray observatory. CTA will consist of two installations, one in the northern, and the other in the southern hemisphere, containing tens of telescopes of different sizes. The CTA performance requirements and the inherent complexity associated with the operation, control and monitoring of such a large distributed multi-telescope array leads to new challenges in the field of the gamma-ray astronomy. The ACTL (array control and data acquisition) system will consist of the hardware and software that is necessary to control and monitor the CTA arrays, as well as to time-stamp, read-out, filter and store -at aggregated rates of few GB/s- the scientific data. The ACTL system must be flexible enough to permit the simultaneous automatic operation of multiple sub-arrays of telescopes with a minimum personnel effort on site. One of the challenges of the system is to provide a reliable integration of the control of a large and heterogeneous set of devices. Moreover, the system is required to be ready to adapt the observation schedule, on timescales of a few tens of seconds, to account for changing environmental conditions or to prioritize incoming scientific alerts from time-critical transient phenomena such as gamma ray bursts. This contribution provides a summary of the main design choices and plans for building the ACTL system.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2015

NectarCAM : a camera for the medium size telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array

NectarCAM is a camera proposed for the medium-sized telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) covering the central energy range of ~100 GeV to ~30 TeV. It has a modular design and is based on the NECTAr chip, at the heart of which is a GHz sampling Switched Capacitor Array and a 12-bit Analog to Digital converter. The camera will be equipped with 265 7-photomultiplier modules, covering a field of view of 8 degrees. Each module includes the photomultiplier bases, high voltage supply, pre-amplifier, trigger, readout and Ethernet transceiver. The recorded events last between a few nanoseconds and tens of nanoseconds. The camera trigger will be flexible so as to minimize the read-out dead-time of the NECTAr chips. NectarCAM is designed to sustain a data rate of more than 4 kHz with less than 5\% dead time. The camera concept, the design and tests of the various subcomponents and results of thermal and electrical prototypes are presented. The design includes the mechanical structure, cooling of the electronics, read-out, clock distribution, slow control, data-acquisition, triggering, monitoring and services.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2015

Central Acceptance Testing for Camera Technologies for CTA

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is an international initiative to build the next generation ground based very-high energy gamma-ray observatory. It will consist of telescopes of three different sizes, employing several different technologies for the cameras that detect the Cherenkov light from the observed air showers. In order to ensure the compliance of each camera technology with CTA requirements, CTA will perform central acceptance testing of each camera technology. To assist with this, the Camera Test Facilities (CTF) work package is developing a detailed test program covering the most important performance, stability, and durability requirements, including setting up the necessary equipment. Performance testing will include a wide range of tests like signal amplitude, time resolution, dead-time determination, trigger efficiency, performance testing under temperature and humidity variations and several others. These tests can be performed on fully-integrated cameras using a portable setup at the camera construction sites. In addition, two different setups for performance tests on camera sub-units are being built, which can provide early feedback for camera development. Stability and durability tests will include the long-term functionality of movable parts, water tightness of the camera housing, temperature and humidity cycling, resistance to vibrations during transport or due to possible earthquakes, UV-resistance of materials and several others. Some durability tests will need to be contracted out because they will need dedicated equipment not currently available within CTA. The planned test procedures and the current status of the test facilities will be presented.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2014

The camera of the fifth H.E.S.S. telescope. Part I: System description

In July 2012, as the four ground-based gamma-ray telescopes of the H.E.S.S. (High Energy Stereoscopic System) array reached their tenth year of operation in Khomas Highlands, Namibia, a fifth telescope took its first data as part of the system. This new Cherenkov detector, comprising a 614.5 m^2 reflector with a highly pixelized camera in its focal plane, improves the sensitivity of the current array by a factor two and extends its energy domain down to a few tens of GeV. The present part I of the paper gives a detailed description of the fifth H.E.S.S. telescope's camera, presenting the details of both the hardware and the software, emphasizing the main improvements as compared to previous H.E.S.S. camera technology.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2013

Design of light concentrators for Cherenkov telescope observatories

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be the largest cosmic gamma ray detector ever built in the world. It will be installed at two different sites in the North and South hemispheres and should be operational for about 30 years. In order to cover the desired energy range, the CTA is composed of typically 50-100 collecting telescopes of various sizes (from 6 to 24-m diameters). Most of them are equipped with a focal plane camera consisting of 1500 to 2000 Photomultipliers (PM) equipped with light concentrating optics, whose double function is to maximize the amount of Cherenkov light detected by the photo-sensors, and to block any stray light originating from the terrestrial environment. Two different optical solutions have been designed, respectively based on a Compound Parabolic Concentrator (CPC), and on a purely dioptric concentrating lens. In this communication are described the technical specifications, optical designs and performance of the different solutions envisioned for all these light concentrators. The current status of their prototyping activities is also given.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2013

The NectarCAM camera project

In the framework of the next generation of Cherenkov telescopes, the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), NectarCAM is a camera designed for the medium size telescopes covering the central energy range of 100 GeV to 30 TeV. NectarCAM will be finely pixelated (~ 1800 pixels for a 8 degree field of view, FoV) in order to image atmospheric Cherenkov showers by measuring the charge deposited within a few nanoseconds time-window. It will have additional features like the capacity to record the full waveform with GHz sampling for every pixel and to measure event times with nanosecond accuracy. An array of a few tens of medium size telescopes, equipped with NectarCAMs, will achieve up to a factor of ten improvement in sensitivity over existing instruments in the energy range of 100 GeV to 10 TeV. The camera is made of roughly 250 independent read-out modules, each composed of seven photo-multipliers, with their associated high voltage base and control, a read-out board and a multi-service backplane board. The read-out boards use NECTAr (New Electronics for the Cherenkov Telescope Array) ASICs which have the dual functionality of analogue memories and Analogue to Digital Converter (ADC). The camera trigger to be used will be flexible so as to minimize the read-out dead-time of the NECTAr chips. We present the camera concept and the design and tests of the various subcomponents. The design includes the mechanical parts, the cooling of the electronics, the readout, the data acquisition, the trigger, the monitoring and services.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2012

Advanced analysis and event reconstruction for the CTA Observatory

The planned Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a future observatory for very-high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray astronomy composed of one site per hemisphere. It aims at 10 times better sensitivity, a better angular resolution and wider energy coverage than current installations such as H.E.S.S., MAGIC and VERITAS. In order to achieve this level of performance, both the design of the telescopes and the analysis algorithms are being studied and optimized within the CTA Monte-Carlo working group. Here, we present ongoing work on the data analysis for both the event reconstruction (energy, direction) and gamma/hadron separation, carried out within the HAP (H.E.S.S. Analysis Package) software framework of the H.E.S.S. collaboration, for this initial study. The event reconstruction uses both Hillas-parameter-based algorithms and an improved version of the 3D-Model algorithm. For the gamma/hadron discrimination, original and robust discriminant variables are used and treated with Boosted Decision Trees (BDTs) in the TMVA (Toolkit for Multivariate Data Analysis) framework. With this advanced analysis, known as Paris-MVA, the sensitivity is improved by a factor of about 2 in the core range of CTA relative to the standard analyses. Here we present the algorithms used for the reconstruction and discrimination, together with the resulting performance characteristics, with good confidence, since the method has been successfully applied for H.E.S.S.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2011

New AGNs discovered by H.E.S.S

During the last year, six new Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) have been discovered and studied by H.E.S.S. at Very High Energies (VHE). Some of these recent discoveries have been made thanks to new enhanced analysis methods and are presented at this conference for the first time. The three blazars 1ES 0414+009, SHBL J001355.9-185406 and 1RXS J101015.9-311909 have been targeted for observation due to their high levels of radio and X-ray fluxes, while the Fermi/LAT catalogue of bright sources triggered the observation of PKS 0447-439 and AP Librae. Additionally, the BL Lac 1ES 1312-423 was discovered in the field-of-view (FoV) of Centaurus A thanks to the large exposure dedicated by H.E.S.S. to this particularly interesting source. The newly-discovered sources are presented here and in three companion presentations at this conference.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2011

Discovery of VHE emission from PKS 0447-439 with H.E.S.S. and MWL studies

Very-high energy (VHE) emission has been detected from PKS 0447-439 with the H.E.S.S. Cherenkov telescope array. This blazar is one of the brightest hard-spectrum extragalactic objects in the Fermi bright source list. Its detection with H.E.S.S. triggered Target of Opportunity observations with the Swift and RXTE telescopes, which show rapid flaring in the X-ray band. The spectrum and light curve measured by H.E.S.S. are presented. Along with the Fermi LAT data it is possible to put an upper limit on the redshift of the source. Implications of the flux evolution are discussed briefly.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2009

Discovery of VHE gamma-rays from Centaurus A

We report the discovery of faint very high energy (VHE, E > 100 GeV) gamma-ray emission from the radio galaxy Centaurus A in deep observations performed with the H.E.S.S. experiment. A signal with a statistical significance of 5.0 sigma is detected from the region including the radio core and the inner kpc jets. The integral flux above an energy threshold of ~250 GeV is measured to be 0.8% of the flux of the Crab Nebula and the spectrum can be described by a power law with a photon index of 2.7 +/- 0.5_stat +/- 0.2_sys. No significant flux variability is detected in the data set. The discovery of VHE gamma-ray emission from Centaurus A reveals particle acceleration in the source to >TeV energies and, together with M 87, establishes radio galaxies as a class of VHE emitters.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2007

A Spectacular VHE Gamma-Ray Outburst from PKS 2155-304 in 2006

Since 2002 the VHE (>100 GeV) gamma-ray flux of the high-frequency peaked BL Lac PKS 2155-304 has been monitored with the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS). An extreme gamma-ray outburst was detected in the early hours of July 28, 2006 (MJD 53944). The average flux above 200 GeV observed during this outburst is ~7 times the flux observed from the Crab Nebula above the same threshold. Peak fluxes are measured with one-minute time scale resolution at more than twice this average value. Variability is seen up to ~600 s in the Fourier power spectrum, and well-resolved bursts varying on time scales of ~200 seconds are observed. There are no strong indications for spectral variability within the data. Assuming the emission region has a size comparable to the Schwarzschild radius of a ~10^9 solar mass black hole, Doppler factors greater than 100 are required to accommodate the observed variability time scales.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2005

Results from observations of AGNs with the H.E.S.S. telescope system and Future plans

The H.E.S.S. (High Energy Stereoscopic System) phase I is comprised of four Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, for observation of galactic and cosmic sources of very high energy gamma rays. Its installation in the Khomas highlands, Namibia has been completed in December, 2003. The first of these telescopes was installed in June 2003, and data-taking has proceeded since that time. The HESS telescope system provides a significant improvement in sensitivity and a threshold for detection below that of previous Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes. The characteristics for the phase-I will be presented, together with plans for phase-II of the experiment, comprised of a large telescope in the centre of the current phase-I providing a lowered threshold and increased sensitivity. We can observe AGNs up to redshift 0.5 with HESS and 2-3 with HESS Phase-2, which provides a unique capability for study of spectral and temporal characteristics on timescales of several hours or even less than 1 h (depending on the strength of flares). We will present the first results from a number of southern AGN observed during the installation of the phase-I, in particular concerning the detection and spectral properties of the AGN PKS2155$-$305.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2004

Evidence for TeV gamma ray emission from TeV J2032+4130 in Whipple archival data

A reanalysis of data taken on the Cygnus region in 1989-90 using the Whipple Observatory atmospheric Cherenkov imaging telescope confirms the existence of the TeV J2032+4130 source reported by the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory and published by the HEGRA Collaboration. The significance at the a priori HEGRA position is 3.3sigma. The peak signal was found at RA=20hr32min, Dec=+41deg33min. This is 0.6deg north of Cygnus X-3 which was the original target of the observations. The flux level (12% of the level of the Crab Nebula) is intermediate between the two later observations and suggests that the TeV source is variable.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2003

The optical system of the H.E.S.S. imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, Part I: layout and components of the system

H.E.S.S. -- the High Energy Stereoscopic System -- is a new system of large imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, with about 100 m^2 mirror area for each of four telescopes, and photomultiplier cameras with a large field of view (5 degr.) and small pixels (0.16 degr.). The dish and reflector are designed to provide good imaging properties over the full field of view, combined with mechanical stability. The paper describes the design criteria and specifications of the system, and the individual components -- dish, mirrors, and Winston cones -- as well as their characteristics. The optical performance of the telescope as a whole is the subject of a companion paper.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2002

Detection of the BL Lac object 1ES1426+428 in the Very High Energy gamma-ray band by the CAT Telescope from 1998-2000

The BL Lac Object 1ES 1426+428, at a red-shift of z=0.129, has been monitored by the CAT telescope from February 1998 to June 2000. The accumulation of 26 hours of observations shows a gamma-ray signal of 321 events above 250 GeV at 5.2 standard deviations, determined using data analysis cuts adapted to a weak, steep-spectrum source. The source emission has an average flux of Phi_diff(400 GeV) = 6.73 +/- 1.27stat +/- 1.45syst x 10^-11 /cm^-2/s/TeV, and a very steep spectrum, with a differential spectral index of gamma = -3.60 +/- 0.57 which can be refined to gamma = -3.66 +/- 0.41 using a higher flux data subset. If, as expected from its broad-band properties, the Very High Energy emission is hard at the source, these observations support a strong absorption effect of gamma-rays by the Intergalactic Infrared field.

astro-ph↗