RT Journal Article
T1 Prospects for a survey of the galactic plane with the Cherenkov Telescope Array
A1 Alvarez-Crespo, N.
A1 Barrio Uña, Juan Abel
A1 Contreras González, José Luis
A1 Dinesh, A
A1 Domínguez Díaz, Alberto
A1 Láinez, M
A1 Larriva, A.B.
A1 López Moya, Marcos
A1 Martinez, O.
A1 Mas-Aguilar, A.
A1 Miranda, J.M.
A1 Miener, Tjark
A1 Moralejo Olaizola, Abelardo
A1 Morcuende Parrilla, Daniel
A1 Nieto Castaño, Daniel
A1 Rosado Vélez, Jaime
A1 Zamanillo, V.M.
AB 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.
YR 2024
FD 2024-10-01
LK https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/135088
UL https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/135088
LA eng
NO Abe, S., et al. «Prospects for a survey of the galactic plane with the Cherenkov Telescope Array». Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, vol. 2024, n.o 10, octubre de 2024, p. 081. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1088/1475-7516/2024/10/081.
NO Firman 594 autores.Centro de Excelencia Severo Ochoa (CEX2019-000920-S, CEX2020-001007-S, CEX2021-001131-S)Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu (RYC2021-032552-I, RYC2021-032991-I, RYC2020-028639-I, RYC-2017-22665)Juan de la Cierva-Incorporación (IJC2018-037195-I, IJC2019-040315-I)Atracción de Talento (2019-T2/TIC-12900)Tecnologías avanzadas para la exploración del universo y sus componentes (PR47/21 TAU)Postdoctoral Junior Leader (LCF/BQ/PI21/11830030) “Programa Operativo de Crecimiento Inteligente” FEDER 2014-2020 (ESFRI-2017-IAC-12)
NO State committee of science (Armenia)
NO Australian Research Council
NO Astronomy Australia Limited
NO The University of Adelaide
NO Australian National University
NO Monash University
NO The University of New South Wales
NO The University of Sydney
NO Western Sydney University
NO Federal Ministry of Education, Science and Research (Austria)
NO Innsbruck University
NO Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (Brasil)
NO Fundação Carlos Chagas Filho de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro
NO Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
NO Fundação de Apoio à Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovação do Paraná — Fundação Araucária
NO Ministerio de Tecnologías de la Información y Comunicación (Brasil)
NO Ministry of Education and Science (Bulgaria)
NO The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
NO Canadian Space Agency
NO Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica (Chile)
NO Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico (Chile)
NO Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo (Chile)
NO Croatian Science Foundation
NO Rudjer Boskovic Institute
NO University of Osijek
NO University of Rijeka
NO University of Split
NO University of Zagreb
NO Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports (Czech Republic)
NO Academy of Finland
NO Ministry of Higher Education and Research (France)
NO Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France)
NO Institut de recherche sur les lois fondamentales de l'Univers
NO Agence Nationale de la Recherche (France)
NO Regional Council Ile de France
NO Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Germany)
NO Max Planck Society
NO German Research Foundation
NO Helmholtz Association
NO Department of Atomic Energy (India)
NO Department of Science and Technology (India)
NO Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica
NO Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare
NO Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca
NO University of Tokyo
NO Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
NO Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (Japan)
NO Netherlands Research School for Astronomy
NO Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
NO University of Oslo
NO Ministry of Science and Higher Education (Poland)
NO National Centre for Research and Development (Poland)
NO National Science Centre (Poland)
NO Slovenian Research Agency
NO South African Department of Science and Technology
NO Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (España)
NO Gobierno de España
NO Comunidad de Madrid
NO European Commission
NO Banco La Caix
NO Junta de Andalucía
NO Universidad de Jaén
NO Universidad Complutense de Madrid
NO Gobierno de Canarias
NO Generalitat de Catalunya
NO Swedish Research Council
NO Royal Physiographic Society of Lund
NO Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
NO Lunarc
NO State Secretariat for Education, Research and Innovation (Switzerland)
NO Swiss National Science Foundation
NO Durham University
NO Leverhulme Trust
NO Liverpool University
NO University of Leicester
NO University of Oxford
NO Royal Society, Science and Technology Facilities Council (UK)
NO National Science Foundation (US)
NO Argonne National Laboratory
NO Barnard College
NO University of California
NO University of Chicago
NO Columbia University
NO Georgia Institute of Technology
NO Institute for Nuclear and Particle Astrophysics
NO Iowa State University
NO Smithsonian Institution
NO Washington University McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences
NO The University of Wisconsin
NO Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation
DS Docta Complutense
RD 8 jun 2026