Improving the performance of the single-dish Cherenkov telescope MAGIC through the use of signal timing

The Cherenkov light flashes produced by extensive air showers are very short in time. A high bandwidth and fast digitizing readout, therefore, can minimize the influence of the background from the light of the night sky, and improve the performance in Cherenkov telescopes. The time structure of the...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Antoranz Canales, Pedro, Barrio Uña, Juan Abel, Contreras González, José Luis, Fonseca González, María Victoria, Miranda Pantoja, José Miguel, Nieto Castaño, Daniel
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2009
País:España
Institución:Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM)
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/44002
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/44002
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:537
539.1
Gamma-Ray Astronomy
IACT
Cherenkov Images
Timing Analysis.
Electrónica (Física)
Electricidad
Física nuclear
2202.03 Electricidad
2207 Física Atómica y Nuclear
Descripción
Sumario:The Cherenkov light flashes produced by extensive air showers are very short in time. A high bandwidth and fast digitizing readout, therefore, can minimize the influence of the background from the light of the night sky, and improve the performance in Cherenkov telescopes. The time structure of the Cherenkov image can further be used in single-dish Cherenkov telescopes as an additional parameter to reduce the background from unwanted hadronic showers. A description of an analysis method which makes use of the time information and the subsequent improvement on the performance of the MAGIC telescope (especially after the upgrade with an ultra fast 2 GSamples/s digitization system in February 2007) will be presented. The use of timing information in the analysis of the new MAGIC data reduces the background by a factor two, which in turn results in an enhancement of about a factor 1.4 of the flux sensitivity to point-like sources, as tested on observations of the Crab Nebula. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.