Monte Carlo Performance Studies of Candidate Sites for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Gernot Maier , L. Arrabito (1) , K. Bernlöhr , J. Bregeon (1) , F. Di Pierro , T. Hassan , T. Jogler , J. Hinton , A. Moralejo , M. Wood

1 LUPM - Laboratoire Univers et Particules de Montpellier

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next-generation gamma-ray observatory with sensitivity in the energy range from 20 GeV to beyond 300 TeV. CTA is proposed to consist of two arrays of 40-100 imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes, with one site located in each of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. The evaluation process for the candidate sites for CTA is supported by detailed Monte Carlo simulations, which take different attributes like site altitude and geomagnetic field configuration into account. In this contribution we present the comparison of the sensitivity and performance of the different CTA site candidates for the measurement of very-high energy gamma rays.

Keywords: Cherenkov counter: atmosphere; gamma ray: VHE; Cherenkov Telescope Array; site; numerical calculations; sensitivity; Monte Carlo; performance; observatory; imaging

Domains: Instrumentation and Detectors [physics.ins-det]; Astrophysics [astro-ph]

Gernot Maier, L. Arrabito, K. Bernlöhr, J. Bregeon, F. Di Pierro, et al.. Monte Carlo Performance Studies of Candidate Sites for the Cherenkov Telescope Array. 34th International Cosmic Ray Conference, Jul 2015, The Hague, Netherlands. pp.713, ⟨10.22323/1.236.0713⟩. ⟨hal-02024215⟩