甚高能γ射线的地面观测设备和分析方法

Instruments and Methods of Data Analysis of Ground-Based Observation of Very-High-Energy Gamma rays

甚高能γ射线(E≥100 GeV)是全波段天文学的重要组成部分,是研究宇宙射线高能粒子的重要窗口。由于甚高能γ射线光子本身携带着重要的物理信息,对它进行研究将极大地拓展人们对宇宙演化、宇宙高能粒子、高能粒子源、高能粒子产生机制、产生环境和发射区几何形状、高能粒子之间以及高能粒子与星际介质间相互作用的认识。随着大有效面积、宽视场、较低能量阈值、较高角分辨率切仑柯夫望远镜的问世,甚高能γ射线天文学的研究取得了极大的成功,目前发现的甚高能γ射线源已经超过90个,证认了一些甚高能γ射线源的类型,包括活动星系核(AGNs)、Wolf-Rayet星、巨型分子云(GMCs)、壳层超新星遗迹(SNRs)、脉冲星风星云(PWNe)、双星系统等。介绍了甚高能γ射线的地面观测设备,并对分析方法进行评述。

Very-high-energy（VHE, E ≥ 100 GeV）,γray observation is an important part of the allpanchromatic astronomy and is a window used to investigate cosmic rays. As VHE γ-ray photons carry important physical information, study of these particles can greatly enhance our knowledge of cosmological evolution, generating mechanisms/environments/source-region geometry of high-energy cosmic-ray particles, as well as the interactions between high-energy particles or those between such particles and intergalactic medium. Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes （IACTs）have large effective collecting areas, wide fields of view （FoV）, low-energy thresholds and high angular resolutions. These telescopes have become important tools of the VHE γ-rays astronomy. More than 90 VHE γ-rays sources have been detected by IACTs, some of which have been identified as Active Galactic Nuclei （AGN）, Wolf-Rayet stars, Giant Molecular Clouds （ GMCs）, shell-type Supernova Remnants （ SNRs ）, Pulsar Wind Nebulae （ PWNe ）, and binary-star systems. In this paper, we review instruments and methods of data analysis of ground-based VHE γ-ray observation.