Solar tower atmospheric Cherenkov effect experiment (STACEE) for ground based gamma ray astronomy
- Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Riverside, California 92521 (United States)
- Enrico Fermi Institute, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut 06520 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, California State University, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90032 (United States)
- Department of Physics, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec H3A 2T8 (Canada)
- Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064 (United States)
The STACEE experiment is being developed to study very high energy astrophysical gamma rays between 50 and 500 GeV. During the last few years this previously unexplored region has received much attention due to the detection of sources up to about 10 GeV by the EGRET instrument on board the CGRO. However, the paucity of detected sources at {approx}1 TeV indicates that fundamental processes working within these sources and/or in the intergalactic space are responsible for the cutoff in the photon spectra of the EGRET sources. The cutoff or the spectral change of these sources can be observed with ground-based Cherenkov detectors with a very low threshold. The use of large arrays of mirrors at solar power facilities is a promising way of lowering the threshold. Using this concept a series of tests were conducted at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility (NSTTF) at Sandia National Laboratories (Albuquerque, NM) with a full size prototype of the STACEE telescope system. The tests show that STACEE will be capable of meaningful exploration of the gamma-ray sky between 50 and 500 GeV with good sensitivity.
- OSTI ID:
- 21172429
- Journal Information:
- AIP Conference Proceedings, Vol. 410, Issue 1; Conference: 4. Compton symposium, Williamsburg, VA (United States), 27-30 Apr 1997; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.54023; (c) 1997 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0094-243X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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