Science with the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Summary, in English

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), will be the major global observatory
for very high-energy (VHE) gamma-ray astronomy over the next decade
and beyond. The scientific potential of CTA is extremely broad: from
understanding the role of relativistic cosmic particles to the search for dark
matter. CTA is an explorer of the extreme universe, probing environments
from the immediate neighbourhood of black holes to cosmic voids on the
largest scales. Covering a huge range in photon energy from 20 GeV to
300 TeV, CTA will improve on all aspects of performance with respect to
current instruments. Wider field of view and improved sensitivity will enable
CTA to survey hundreds of times faster than previous TeV telescopes. The
angular resolution of CTA will approach 1 arc-minute at high energies —
the best resolution of any instrument operating above the X-ray band —
allowing detailed imaging of a large number of gamma-ray sources. A one to
two order-of-magnitude collection area improvement makes CTA a powerful
instrument for time-domain astrophysics, three orders of magnitude more
sensitive on hour timescales than Fermi-LAT at 30 GeV. The observatory
will operate arrays on sites in both hemispheres to provide full sky coverage
and will hence maximise the potential for the rarest phenomena such as
very nearby supernovae, gamma-ray bursts, or gravitational wave transients.
With 99 telescopes on the southern site and 19 telescopes on the northern
site, flexible operation will be possible, with sub-arrays available for specific
tasks.