Development and Acquisition of Electronic Instrumentation for the VERITAS Consortium Array of High Energy Gamma-Ray Telescopes

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

The primary objective of the VERITAS collaboration's research effort is to find celestial point sources of ultra high energy gamma rays. Over the past decade the collaboration has pioneered the development of the Atmospheric Cherenkov Imaging Technique. Currently the collaboration operates a 10m imaging telescope situated on Mount Hopkins in South East Arizona. The collaboration has successfully detected ultra high energy gamma rays from the Crab Nebula and the active galactic nuclei Markarian 421, Markarian 501 and 1ES_2344. The observational program is aimed at looking for gamma rays from a variety of celestial objects such as supernova remnants, pulsars, binary x-ray sources, black holes and active galactic nuclei. A rich education/outreach component of this project is under development in conjunction with the Smithsonian Institution and the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.