The Advanced Gamma-ray Imaging System (AGIS)--Science Highlights

Journal Article · Wed Dec 24 00:00:00 EST 2008 · AIP Conference Proceedings

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.3076823· OSTI ID:21255201

Buckley, J; Krawczynski, H ^[1]; Coppi, P ^[2]; Digel, S; Funk, S ^[3]; Krennrich, F; Pohl, M ^[4]; Romani, R ^[5]; Vassiliev, V ^[6]

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1. Department of Physics and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130 (United States)
2. Department of Astronomy, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8101 (United States)
3. Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Stanford, CA 94025 (United States)
4. Department of Physics and Astronomy, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011 (United States)
5. Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 (United States)
6. Department of Physics and Astronomy, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1562 (United States)

The Advanced Gamma-ray Imaging System (AGIS), a future gamma-ray telescope consisting of an array of {approx}50 atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes distributed over an area of {approx}1 km{sup 2}, will provide a powerful new tool for exploring the high-energy universe. The order-of-magnitude increase in sensitivity and improved angular resolution could provide the first detailed images of {gamma}-ray emission from other nearby galaxies or galaxy clusters. The large effective area will provide unprecedented sensitivity to short transients (such as flares from AGNs and GRBs) probing both intrinsic spectral variability (revealing the details of the acceleration mechanism and geometry) as well as constraining the high-energy dispersion in the velocity of light (probing the structure of spacetime and Lorentz invariance). A wide field of view ({approx}4 times that of current instruments) and excellent angular resolution (several times better than current instruments) will allow for an unprecedented survey of the Galactic plane, providing a deep unobscured survey of SNRs, X-ray binaries, pulsar-wind nebulae, molecular cloud complexes and other sources. The differential flux sensitivity of {approx}10{sup -13} erg cm{sup -2} sec{sup -1} will rival the most sensitive X-ray instruments for these extended Galactic sources. The excellent capabilities of AGIS at energies below 100 GeV will provide sensitivity to AGN and GRBs out to cosmological redshifts, increasing the number of AGNs detected at high energies from about 20 to more than 100, permitting population studies that will provide valuable insights into both a unified model for AGN and a detailed measurement of the effects of intergalactic absorption from the diffuse extragalactic background light. A new instrument with fast-slewing wide-field telescopes could provide detections of a number of long-duration GRBs providing important physical constraints from this new spectral component. The new array will also have excellent background rejection and very large effective area, providing the very high sensitivity needed to detect emission from dark matter annihilation in Galactic substructure or nearby Dwarf spheroidal galaxies.

• OSTI ID: 21255201
• Journal Information: AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 1085, Issue 1; Conference: 4. international meeting on high energy gamma-ray astronomy, Heidelberg (Germany), 7-11 Jul 2008; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3076823; (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
99 GENERAL AND MISCELLANEOUS//MATHEMATICS, COMPUTING, AND INFORMATION SCIENCE
ABSORPTION
ACCELERATION
ANNIHILATION
GALAXIES
GALAXY CLUSTERS
GALAXY NUCLEI
GAMMA ASTRONOMY
GAMMA RADIATION
GEV RANGE 10-100
LORENTZ INVARIANCE
NEBULAE
NONLUMINOUS MATTER
PULSARS
RED SHIFT
RESOLUTION
SENSITIVITY
SPACE-TIME
TELESCOPES
UNIVERSE
X RADIATION