Status report for the Keck/Solar Two gamma ray observatory

Details Status report for the Keck/Solar Two gamma ray observatory Status report for the Keck/Solar Two gamma ray observatory

Aug 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001icrc....7.2802t&link_type=abstract

Proceedings of the 27th International Cosmic Ray Conference. 07-15 August, 2001. Hamburg, Germany. Under the auspices of the Int

Physics

Scientific paper

: There is strong interest in the rapidly growing gamma-ray astrophysics community to make sensitive observations in the unexplored 20-300 GeV energy range which is largely inaccessible to present ground-based telescopes. The abandoned solar power farms utilizing a central receiver surrounded by a large field of steerable heliostats (mirrors) provide a way to make observations below 300 GeV at a relatively small cost as shown by CELESTE, GRAAL and STACEE. The Solar Two Power Plant in Barstow, California, has more than 2,000 steerable mirrors and is an order of magnitude larger than any solar farm in the world. As such, it has the potential to be the most sensitive ground-based gammaray detector in the 20-300 GeV energy region. Using a grant from the W.M Keck Foundation, we have built a camera, which collects light from 32 heliostats at the Solar Two site. We are using this assembly to observe the Crab Nebula, the standard candle of gamma ray astronomy, and concurrently expanding the telescope to include 64 heliostats. The celestial gamma rays can be discriminated from the more abundant hadronic Cosmic Ray background by sampling the photon density in the Cherenkov wavefront and using the well known signatures of gamma rays and hadronic showers. The status of the Keck Solar Two Gamma Ray Observatory is presented and the test results for the first 32heliostat telescope are discussed.

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