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Opis: Approximately one hundred sources of very-high-energy (VHE) gamma rays are known in the Milky Way, detected with a combination of targeted observations and surveys. A survey of the entire Galactic Plane in the energy range from a few tens of GeV to a few hundred TeV has been proposed as a Key Science Project for the upcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO). This article presents the status of the studies towards the Galactic Plane Survey (GPS). We build and make publicly available a sky model that combines data from recent observations of known gamma-ray emitters with state-of-the-art physically-driven models of synthetic populations of the three main classes of established Galactic VHE sources (pulsar wind nebulae, young and interacting supernova remnants, and compact binary systems), as well as of interstellar emission from cosmic-ray interactions in the Milky Way. We also perform an optimisation of the observation strategy (pointing pattern and scheduling) based on recent estimations of the instrument performance. We use the improved sky model and observation strategy to simulate GPS data corresponding to a total observation time of 1620 hours spread over ten years. Data are then analysed using the methods and software tools under development for real data. Under our model assumptions and for the realisation considered, we show that the GPS has the potential to increase the number of known Galactic VHE emitters by almost a factor of five. This corresponds to the detection of more than two hundred pulsar wind nebulae and a few tens of supernova remnants at average integral fluxes one order of magnitude lower than in the existing sample above 1 TeV, therefore opening the possibility to perform unprecedented population studies. The GPS also has the potential to provide new VHE detections of binary systems and pulsars, to confirm the existence of a hypothetical population of gamma-ray pulsars with an additional TeV emission component, and to detect bright sources capable of accelerating particles to PeV energies (PeVatrons). Furthermore, the GPS will constitute a pathfinder for deeper follow-up observations of these source classes. Finally, we show that we can extract from GPS data an estimate of the contribution to diffuse emission from unresolved sources, and that there are good prospects of detecting interstellar emission and statistically distinguishing different scenarios. Thus, a survey of the entire Galactic plane carried out from both hemispheres with CTAO will ensure a transformational advance in our knowledge of Galactic VHE source populations and interstellar emission.
Ključne besede: very-high-energy gamma rays, Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory, CTAO Galactic Plane Survey, galactic cosmic rays, pulsar wind nebulae, supernova remnants, galactic PeVatrons, binary systems, diffuse emission
Objavljeno v RUNG: 28.10.2024; Ogledov: 79; Prenosov: 0
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Opis: Monochromatic gamma-ray signals constitute a potential smoking gun signature for annihilating or decaying dark matter particles that could relatively easily be distinguished from astrophysical or instrumental backgrounds. We provide an updated assessment of the sensitivity of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) to such signals, based on observations of the Galactic centre region as well as of selected dwarf spheroidal galaxies. We find that current limits and detection prospects for dark matter masses above 300 GeV will be significantly improved, by up to an order of magnitude in the multi-TeV range. This demonstrates that CTA will set a new standard for gamma-ray astronomy also in this respect, as the world's largest and most sensitive high-energy gamma-ray observatory, in particular due to its exquisite energy resolution at TeV energies and the adopted observational strategy focussing on regions with large dark matter densities. Throughout our analysis, we use up-to-date instrument response functions, and we thoroughly model the effect of instrumental systematic uncertainties in our statistical treatment. We further present results for other potential signatures with sharp spectral features, e.g. box-shaped spectra, that would likewise very clearly point to a particle dark matter origin.
Ključne besede: dark matter experiments, dark matter theory, gamma ray experiments, Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory
Objavljeno v RUNG: 24.09.2024; Ogledov: 337; Prenosov: 3
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Opis: Aims: In astronomy, machine learning has been successful in various tasks such as source localisation, classification, anomaly detection, and segmentation. However, feature regression remains an area with room for improvement. We aim to design a network that can accurately estimate sources' features and their uncertainties from single-band image cutouts, given the approximated locations of the sources provided by the previously developed code AutoSourceID-Light (ASID-L) or other external catalogues. This work serves as a proof of concept, showing the potential of machine learning in estimating astronomical features when trained on meticulously crafted synthetic images and subsequently applied to real astronomical data. Methods: The algorithm presented here, AutoSourceID-FeatureExtractor (ASID-FE), uses single-band cutouts of 32x32 pixels around the localised sources to estimate flux, sub-pixel centre coordinates, and their uncertainties. ASID-FE employs a two-step mean variance estimation (TS-MVE) approach to first estimate the features and then their uncertainties without the need for additional information, for example the point spread function (PSF). For this proof of concept, we generated a synthetic dataset comprising only point sources directly derived from real images, ensuring a controlled yet authentic testing environment. Results: We show that ASID-FE, trained on synthetic images derived from the MeerLICHT telescope, can predict more accurate features with respect to similar codes such as SourceExtractor and that the two-step method can estimate well-calibrated uncertainties that are better behaved compared to similar methods that use deep ensembles of simple MVE networks. Finally, we evaluate the model on real images from the MeerLICHT telescope and the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) to test its transfer learning abilities.
Ključne besede: data analysis, image processing, astronomical databases
Objavljeno v RUNG: 08.11.2023; Ogledov: 1334; Prenosov: 9
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Opis: The ISS-based Calorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) is directly measuring the energy spectrum and direction distribution of electron+positron cosmic-rays up to 20 TeV. A main goal of CALET is to identify a signature of a nearby supernova remnant (SNR) in electron+positron cosmic-rays. The Vela SNR has the highest potential to cause a spectral feature in the TeV region and/or a detectable anisotropy. Using the numerical cosmic-ray propagation code DRAGON, the spectrum and expected anisotropy of the Vela SNR together with background from more distant SNR was calculated depending on injection and propagation conditions. The results of these calculations were used to simulate CALET event sky-maps on which several analysis methods were employed to estimate the CALET sensitivity. Assuming that there is no anisotropy, the expected limits on the dipole amplitude from an all-sky search were calculated as a function of the selected energy range and the shape of the predicted spectra. However for the detection of a dipole anisotropy, the direction towards Vela is predetermined, and sensitivity is strongly boosted by a directed search. It is shown that with this method, CALET has a significant probability to identify an anisotropy signature from Vela. As it may disturb the Vela signature, the contribution to the local cosmic-ray anisotropy from several other nearby SNR and pulsars, as well as from the general source distribution in the galaxy was studied. It was found that Vela is expected to dominate and have a detectable signature, though there is some influence from other sources on direction and strength of the anisotropy. Furthermore, the implications of detecting an dipole anisotropy directed towards Vela for the local propagation parameters, such as the diffusion coefficient, are explained.
Ključne besede: cosmic-rays, CALET, cosmic-ray propagation
Objavljeno v RUNG: 05.10.2023; Ogledov: 1244; Prenosov: 5
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Opis: Clusters of galaxies are the largest gravitationally-bound structures in the Universe. They are composed of galaxies and gas (approximately 15% of the total mass) mostly dark matter (DM, accounts up to 85% of the total mass). If the DM is composed of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles (WIMPs), galaxy clusters represent one of the best targets to search for gamma-ray signals induced by the decay of WIMPs, with masses around the TeV scale. Due to its sensitivity and energy range of operation (from 20 GeV to 300 TeV), the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) Observatory has a unique opportunity to test WIMPs with masses close to the unitarity limit. This will complement the searches for DM from other gamma-ray observatories as well as direct and collider experiments. The CTA Observatory is planning to search for gamma-ray emission, either its origin may be cosmic-ray (CR) or DM related, in the Perseus galaxy cluster during the first years of operation. In this poster, we will present the software created to perform the analysis using the ctools software and the corresponding results.
Ključne besede: Cherenkov Telescope Array, CTA, dark matter, standard model, dwarf spheroidal galaxies
Objavljeno v RUNG: 26.09.2023; Ogledov: 1492; Prenosov: 6
Celotno besedilo (1,33 MB)
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