Wavefront sampling technique : VHE gamma-ray experiments in India

Abstract

Atmospheric Cverenkov techniques is the only method which has been successfully used to probe the sky in the TeV energy band. However it has certain intrinsic drawbacks arising primarily out of the presence of cosmic rays which out-number gamma-rays by around a factor of ~ 1000. Second generation experiments in the field have developed some novel techniques by which a bulk of the cosmic rays could be rejected thus increasing the signal to noise ratio. Thus the field emerged from an era when the confidence level of positive results were rarely larger than a few standard deviations. The underlying technique responsible for this phenomenal success was the ability to identify the primary species from the Cverenkov images recorded at the observation level, first demonstrated by simulation studies. Subsequently, it was found again through simulation techniques, that the spatial sampling of Cverenkov photons too is potentially a viable as well as powerful technique which is yet to be fully exploited. Several Cverenkov telescope arrays are now in advanced stages of operation which employ this technique in order to reduce the cosmic ray background. This technique, also called the wavefront sampling technique, is being employed for studying TeV gamma-rays at the Pachmarhi Array of Cverenkov Telescopes (PACT). While comparing the two power ful techniques, we will also discuss the progress made by the PACT team in trying to achieve a significant signal to noise ratio by this method. PACT has detected a steady flux of TeV gamma-rays from the Crab Nebula at a significance level of 13.4?. PACT also detectred the TeV ?-ays flares from Mkn421 during two episodes, one in January 2000 and the other in January 2001. The variability of gamma-ray count rate is consistent with other contemporaneous observations of the sources.