Fyzikální ústav Akademie věd ČR

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is an upcoming observatory for very high-energy gamma rays. CTA has ambitious science goals, for which it is required to achieve a full-sky coverage, to improve the sensitivity by about an order of magnitude and to span about four decades of energy, from a few tens of GeV to above 100 TeV with an enhanced angular and energy resolution compared to the existing VHE gamma-ray observatories. The paper introduces general concepts of this project.

Approximate location of candidate sites in the range of ±20–30° latitude.

The CTA team of our department is actively involved especially in the evaluation of the observational conditions of the many CTA candidate sites using satellite images, in the development of the monitoring systems for future CTA observations as well as in the grid computing support. In collaboration with the group in Olomouc we participate also in the project aiming to develop the CTA small size telescopes.

[1] CTA Consortium (z FZÚ: J. Chudoba, J. Ebr, M. Hrabovský, D. Mandát, M Palatka, M. Pech, M. Prouza, J. Řídký, P. Schovánek, P. Trávníček) Introducing the CTA concept Astropart Phys. 43 (2013) 3 - 18.