Monte Carlo studies for the optimisation of the Cherenkov Telescope Array layout

  • A. Acharyya
  • , I. Agudo
  • , E. O. Angüner
  • , R. Alfaro
  • , J. Alfaro
  • , C. Alispach
  • , R. Aloisio
  • , R. Alves Batista
  • , J. P. Amans
  • , L. Amati
  • , E. Amato
  • , G. Ambrosi
  • , L. A. Antonelli
  • , C. Aramo
  • , T. Armstrong
  • , F. Arqueros
  • , L. Arrabito
  • , K. Asano
  • , H. Ashkar
  • , C. Balazs
    • M. Balbo, B. Balmaverde, P. Barai, A. Barbano, M. Barkov, U. Barres de Almeida, J. A. Barrio, D. Bastieri, J. Becerra González, J. Becker Tjus, L. Bellizzi, W. Benbow, E. Bernardini, M. I. Bernardos, K. Bernlöhr, A. Berti, M. Berton, B. Bertucci, V. Beshley, B. Biasuzzi, C. Bigongiari, R. Bird, E. Bissaldi, J. Biteau, O. Blanch, J. Blazek, C. Boisson, G. Bonanno, A. Bonardi, C. Bonavolontá, G. Bonnoli, P. Bordas, M. Böttcher, J. Bregeon, A. Brill, A. M. Brown, K. Brügge, P. Brun, P. Bruno, A. Bulgarelli, T. Bulik, M. Burton, A. Burtovoi, G. Busetto, R. Cameron, R. Canestrari, M. Capalbi, A. Caproni, R. Capuzzo-Dolcetta, P. Caraveo, S. Caroff, R. Carosi, S. Casanova, E. Cascone, F. Cassol, F. Catalani, O. Catalano, D. Cauz, M. Cerruti, S. Chaty, A. Chen, M. Chernyakova, G. Chiaro, M. Cieślar, S. M. Colak, V. Conforti, E. Congiu, J. L. Contreras, J. Cortina, A. Costa, H. Costantini, G. Cotter, P. Cristofari, P. Cumani, G. Cusumano, A. D'Aí, F. D'Ammando, L. Dangeon, P. Da Vela, F. Dazzi, A. De Angelis, V. De Caprio, R. de Cássia dos Anjos, F. De Frondat, E. M. de Gouveia Dal Pino, B. De Lotto, D. De Martino, M. de Naurois, E. de Oña Wilhelmi, F. de Palma, V. de Souza, M. Del Santo, C. Delgado, D. della Volpe, T. Di Girolamo, F. Di Pierro, L. Di Venere, C. Díaz, S. Diebold, A. Djannati-Ataï, A. Dmytriiev, D. Dominis Prester, A. Donini, D. Dorner, M. Doro, J. L. Dournaux, J. Ebr, T. R.N. Ekoume, D. Elsässer, G. Emery, D. Falceta-Goncalves, E. Fedorova, S. Fegan, Q. Feng, G. Ferrand, E. Fiandrini, A. Fiasson, M. Filipovic, V. Fioretti, M. Fiori, S. Flis, M. V. Fonseca, G. Fontaine, L. Freixas Coromina, S. Fukami, Y. Fukui, S. Funk, M. Füßling, D. Gaggero, G. Galanti, R. J. Garcia López, M. Garczarczyk, D. Gascon, T. Gasparetto, M. Gaug, A. Ghalumyan, F. Gianotti, G. Giavitto, N. Giglietto, F. Giordano, M. Giroletti, J. Gironnet, J. F. Glicenstein, R. Gnatyk, P. Goldoni, J. M. González, M. M. González, K. N. Gourgouliatos, T. Grabarczyk, J. Granot, D. Green, T. 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Tavecchio, L. Taylor, L. A. Tejedor, P. Temnikov, T. Terzic, V. Testa, L. Tibaldo, C. J. Todero Peixoto, F. Tokanai, L. Tomankova, D. Tonev, D. F. Torres, G. Tosti, L. Tosti, N. Tothill, F. Toussenel, G. Tovmassian, P. Travnicek, C. Trichard, G. Umana, V. Vagelli, M. Valentino, B. Vallage, P. Vallania, L. Valore, J. Vandenbroucke, G. S. Varner, G. Vasileiadis, V. Vassiliev, M. Vázquez Acosta, M. Vecchi, S. Vercellone, S. Vergani, G. P. Vettolani, A. Viana, C. F. Vigorito, J. Vink, V. Vitale, H. Voelk, A. Vollhardt, S. Vorobiov, S. J. Wagner, R. Walter, F. Werner, R. White, A. Wierzcholska, M. Will, D. A. Williams, R. Wischnewski, L. Yang, T. Yoshida, T. Yoshikoshi, M. Zacharias, L. Zampieri, M. Zavrtanik, D. Zavrtanik, A. A. Zdziarski, A. Zech, H. Zechlin, A. Zenin, V. I. Zhdanov, S. Zimmer, J. Zorn

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

74 Scopus citations

Abstract

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the major next-generation observatory for ground-based very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. It will improve the sensitivity of current ground-based instruments by a factor of five to twenty, depending on the energy, greatly improving both their angular and energy resolutions over four decades in energy (from 20 GeV to 300 TeV). This achievement will be possible by using tens of imaging Cherenkov telescopes of three successive sizes. They will be arranged into two arrays, one per hemisphere, located on the La Palma island (Spain) and in Paranal (Chile). We present here the optimised and final telescope arrays for both CTA sites, as well as their foreseen performance, resulting from the analysis of three different large-scale Monte Carlo productions.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)35-53
Number of pages19
JournalAstroparticle Physics
Volume111
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2019
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019

Funding

We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the following agencies and organizations: State Committee of Science of Armenia, Armenia; The Australian Research Council, Astronomy Australia Ltd, The University of Adelaide, Australian National University, Monash University, The University of New South Wales, The University of Sydney, Western Sydney University, Australia; Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy, and Innsbruck University, Austria; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations and Communications (MCTIC), Brasil; Ministry of Education and Science, National RI Roadmap Project DO1-153/28.08.2018, Bulgaria; The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Space Agency, Canada; CONICYT-Chile grants PFB-06, FB0821, ACT 1406, FONDECYT-Chile grants 3160153, 3150314, 1150411, 1161463, 1170171, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile Vice-Rectory of Research internationalization grant under MINEDUC agreement PUC1566, Chile; Croatian Science Foundation, Rudjer Boskovic Institute, University of Osijek, University of Rijeka, University of Split, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Croatia; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, MEYS LM2015046, LTT17006 and EU/MEYS CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001403, CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/17_049/0008422, Czech Republic; Ministry of Higher Education and Research, CNRS-INSU and CNRS-IN2P3, CEA-Irfu, ANR, Regional Council Ile-de France, Labex ENIGMASS, OSUG2020, P2IO and OCEVU, France; Max Planck Society, BMBF, DESY, Helmholtz Association, Germany; Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Science and Technology, India; Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), MIUR, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF-OABRERA) Grant Fondazione Cariplo/Regione Lombardia ID 2014-1980/RST_ERC, Italy; ICRR, University of Tokyo, JSPS, MEXT, Japan; Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA), Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Netherlands; University of Oslo, Norway; Ministry of Science and Higher Education, DIR/WK/2017/12, the National Centre for Research and Development and the National Science Centre, UMO-2016/22/M/ST9/00583, Poland; Slovenian Research Agency, Slovenia, grants P1-0031, P1-0385, I0-0033, J1-9146; South African Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation through the South African Gamma-Ray Astronomy Programme, South Africa; MINECO National R+D+I, Severo Ochoa, Maria de Maeztu, CDTI, PAIDI, UJA, FPA2017-90566-REDC, Spain; Swedish Research Council, Royal Physiographic Society of Lund, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, The Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at Lunarc (Lund), Sweden; Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), Ernest Boninchi Foundation, Switzerland; Durham University, Leverhulme Trust, Liverpool University, University of Leicester, University of Oxford, Royal Society, Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK; U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory, Barnard College, University of California, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics (INPAC-MRPI program), Iowa State University, the Smithsonian Institution, Washington University McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, The University of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, USA. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Union's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007-2013) under grant agreements no 262053 and no 317446. This project is receiving funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programs under agreement no 676134. We would like to thank the computing centres that provided resources for the generation of the Instrument Response Functions [45]. We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the following agencies and organizations: State Committee of Science of Armenia, Armenia; The Australian Research Council, Astronomy Australia Ltd, The University of Adelaide, Australian National University, Monash University, The University of New South Wales, The University of Sydney, Western Sydney University, Australia; Federal Ministry of Science, Research and Economy, and Innsbruck University, Austria; Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (FAPERJ), Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP), Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations and Communications (MCTIC), Brasil; Ministry of Education and Science, National RI Roadmap Project DO1-153/28.08.2018, Bulgaria; The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Space Agency, Canada; CONICYT -Chile grants PFB-06 , FB0821 , ACT 1406 , FONDECYT -Chile grants 3160153 , 3150314 , 1150411 , 1161463 , 1170171 , Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile Vice-Rectory of Research internationalization grant under MINEDUC agreement PUC1566 , Chile; Croatian Science Foundation, Rudjer Boskovic Institute, University of Osijek, University of Rijeka, University of Split, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture, University of Zagreb, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Croatia; Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports , MEYS LM2015046 , LTT17006 and EU/MEYS CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001403 , CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/17_049/0008422 , Czech Republic; Ministry of Higher Education and Research, CNRS-INSU and CNRS-IN2P3, CEA-Irfu, ANR, Regional Council Ile-de France, Labex ENIGMASS, OSUG2020, P2IO and OCEVU, France; Max Planck Society, BMBF, DESY, Helmholtz Association, Germany; Department of Atomic Energy, Department of Science and Technology, India; Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF), Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), MIUR, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF-OABRERA) Grant Fondazione Cariplo/Regione Lombardia ID 2014-1980/RST_ERC , Italy; ICRR, University of Tokyo, JSPS, MEXT, Japan; Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA), Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), Netherlands; University of Oslo, Norway; Ministry of Science and Higher Education , DIR/WK/2017/12 , the National Centre for Research and Development and the National Science Centre , UMO-2016/22/M/ST9/00583 , Poland; Slovenian Research Agency , Slovenia, grants P1-0031 , P1-0385 , I0-0033 , J1-9146 ; South African Department of Science and Technology and National Research Foundation through the South African Gamma-Ray Astronomy Programme, South Africa; MINECO National R+D+I, Severo Ochoa, Maria de Maeztu, CDTI, PAIDI, UJA, FPA2017-90566-REDC , Spain; Swedish Research Council, Royal Physiographic Society of Lund, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, The Swedish National Infrastructure for Computing (SNIC) at Lunarc (Lund), Sweden; Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), Ernest Boninchi Foundation, Switzerland; Durham University, Leverhulme Trust, Liverpool University, University of Leicester, University of Oxford, Royal Society, Science and Technology Facilities Council, UK; U.S. National Science Foundation, U.S. Department of Energy, Argonne National Laboratory, Barnard College, University of California, University of Chicago, Columbia University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics (INPAC-MRPI program), Iowa State University, the Smithsonian Institution, Washington University McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, The University of Wisconsin and the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, USA.

FundersFunder number
Barnard College, University of California, University of Chicago
Canadian Space Agency, Canada
Ernest Boninchi Foundation
Fondazione Cariplo/Regione Lombardia2014-1980/RST_ERC
Georgia Institute of Technology, Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics
INAF-OABRERA
MINECO National R+D+IFPA2017-90566-REDC
Mechanical Engineering and Naval Architecture
Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovations and Communications
OCEVU
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile Vice-Rectory of Research
Regional CouncilOSUG2020
Rudjer Boskovic Institute
University of Rijeka
National Science Foundation
Smithsonian Institution
U.S. Department of Energy
Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation
Argonne National Laboratory
Columbia University
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Uddannelses- og Forskningsministeriet
Iowa State University
Astronomy Australia Limited
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme
Seventh Framework Programme262053, FP7/2007-2013, 676134, 317446
McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University in St. Louis
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Leverhulme Trust
Royal Society
Australian Research Council
Australian National University
Durham University
National Research Foundation
Department of Science and Technology, Republic of South Africa
Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, India
Department of Atomic Energy, Government of India
Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron
Agence Nationale de la Recherche
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology
Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
University of New South Wales
University of Sydney
University of Western Sydney
Monash University
University of Adelaide
Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Ministerstvo Školství, Mládeže a TělovýchovyEU/MEYS CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/16_013/0001403, CZ.02.1.01/0.0/0.0/17_049/0008422, LM2015046, LTT17006
Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung
Ministerio de Educación, Gobierno de ChilePUC1566
Agencia Nacional de Investigación y DesarrolloFB0821, ACT 1406, PFB-06
Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico3150314, 1161463, 1150411, 3160153, 1170171
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek
Ministero dell’Istruzione, dell’Università e della Ricerca
Bundesministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Wirtschaft
Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico
Instituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare
Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
Narodowe Centrum NaukiUMO-2016/22/M/ST9/00583
Javna Agencija za Raziskovalno Dejavnost RSI0-0033, P1-0031, P1-0385, J1-9146
Vetenskapsrådet
Narodowym Centrum Nauki
Hrvatska Zaklada za Znanost
Ministère de l'Education Nationale, de l'Enseignement Superieur et de la Recherche
Ministerstwo Edukacji i NaukiDIR/WK/2017/12
Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
Institut national des sciences de l'UniversCNRS-IN2P3
University of Tokyo
Ministerio de Ciencia e InnovaciónDO1-153/28.08.2018
Istituto Nazionale di AstrofisicaID 2014-1980/RST_ERC
Universitetet i Oslo
Narodowe Centrum Badań i Rozwoju
Kungliga Fysiografiska Sällskapet i Lund
Horizon 2020
Consejo Nacional de Innovación, Ciencia y Tecnología
Helmholtz Association
Sveučilište Josipa Jurja Strossmayera u Osijeku
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
Ministerio de Economía, Industria y Competitividad, Gobierno de España
Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico, Tecnológico y de Innovación Tecnológica
Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia, Inovações e Comunicações
Universität Innsbruck
Nederlandse Onderzoekschool Voor Astronomie
Sveučilište u Splitu

    Keywords

    • Cherenkov telescopes
    • Cosmic rays
    • Gamma rays
    • IACT technique
    • Monte Carlo simulations

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