Background:
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a transformational next step in ground- based TeV (1012eV) gamma-ray astronomy. CTA will utilize Atmospheric Cherenkov techniques via an array of about a hundred imaging Cherenkov telescopes in the Northern and the Southern Hemisphere. The Northern array will be situated at La Palma, Canary Islands, and the Southern will be located at Paranal Chile. CTA will be at least ten times more sensitive than the present generation At- mospheric Cherenkov telescopes and cover a wider energy range from about 20 GeV to well over 100 TeV. This project is the initiative of an international collaboration involving scientists from various institutes in Asia, Europe, South America, and the USA. India has been a part of this international consortium since 2012. Very recently, a CTA-India consortium has been formed which consists of approximately fifty members, including astronomers, astroparticle physicists, high energy particle physicists, engineers, postdoctoral fellows, and students working in various Indian universities and national laboratories. The purpose of the CTA-India consortium is to facilitate the participation of Indian physicists and engineers in the CTA project in building detector hardware and R&D, in its operation, analysis, and publication of physics results derived from data collected by the CTA project. The CTA-India consortium is working on a proposal submitted to funding agencies in the coming months for the funds to contribute to building the CTA Observatory. CTA-India consortium proposes a one-day workshop on the gamma-ray studies with CTA.
Workshop Purpose and Agenda:
This one-day workshop will discuss the possible Indian contribution to the CTA. The workshop is open to any astronomers interested in CTA and its science.
During this workshop, we will cover the following topics:
- Science cases for CTA: Galactic and Extra-galactic gamma-ray sources, Gamma-ray transients and Indirect detection of dark matter through ob- servation of astrophysical sources
- Simulations: Atmospheric air showers and detector simulations
- Data Analysis: Introduction to gamma.py, Machine learning, and AI as a tool in gamma-ray astronomy
We will also like to explore the possibility of developing different science cases for CTA along with multi-waveband observations from Indian facilities such as HAGAR, MACE, HCT, GRT, AstroSat, and uGMRT during this workshop. Experts from CTA collaboration will also be requested to speak about the CTA work packages during this meeting through online talks.
Participants:
We expect around 40 participants in this workshop in online mode. These participants include senior scientists from India and abroad, postdoctoral fellow, Ph.D. students, and engineers from the different institutes and industry. We will have a total of eight talks, and one long panel discussion session spread over one-day.
Expected outcome:
CTA-India consortium would like to organize this workshop, which will introduce the project, its technological and scientific goals to the Indian astronomical community under the broader umbrella of multi-wavelngth and multi messenger astrophysics. This workshop will thus be beneficial in attracting young minds, and the consortium hopes to be able to develop a workforce in the future for the project.
CTA-India Consortium:
Amit Shukla, Debanjan Bose, Varsha Chitnis, Alok Gupta, Manas Maity, Pratik Majumdar, Ranjeev Misra and Mainak Sengupta