14/12/07: Coloquio Very High Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy: VERITAS and AGIS

Professor James Buckley

(Washington University, 1 Brookings Drive, St.Louis, MO 63130 U.S.A.)

Viernes 14 de diciembre de 2007, a las 14:30hs
Aula del Edificio IAFE – Ciudad Universitaria

Abstract:
The new generation of imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov detectors (HESS,
MAGIC and VERITAS) have brought about a dramatic growth in the field of
Very High Energy (VHE; E>150 GeV) gamma-ray astronomy
with the detection of ~70 sources over the last few years.
Observations in the southern hemisphere, in particular, have lead to the
discovery of numerous sources (including resolved images of
supernova remnants and pulsar wind nebulae) as well as the discovery of
new source classes (X-ray binaries, microquasars, galactic
unidentified sources, and the Galactic center).

For the first half of the talk, I will give an overview of the status of
gamma-ray astronomy including a discussion of highlights from the
southern sky (measured with HESS) as well as very recent results from
VERITAS. I will then move on to the discussion of a future projects
(e.g.,the Advanced Gamma-ray Imaging System AGIS) that promises to
provide an order of magnitude increase in sensitivity. These
projects are still in the early planning phases, but much work has been
done on defining the scientific drivers and technical
approaches. I will discuss the status of these developments and
describe the role that Argentina may play given the future promise of
Galactic gamma-ray astronomy.