An innovative workspace for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is an initiative to build the next generation, ground-based gamma-ray observatories. We present a prototype workspace developed at INAF that aims at providing innovative solutions for the CTA community. The workspace leverages open source technologies providing web access to a set of tools widely used by the CTA community. Two different user interaction models, connected to an authentication and authorization infrastructure, have been implemented in this workspace. The first one is a workflow management system accessed via a science gateway (based on the Liferay platform) and the second one is an interactive virtual desktop environment. The integrated workflow system allows to run applications used in astronomy and physics researches into distributed computing infrastructures (ranging from clusters to grids and clouds). The interactive desktop environment allows to use many software packages without any installation on local desktops exploiting their native graphical user interfaces. The science gateway and the interactive desktop environment are connected to the authentication and authorization infrastructure composed by a Shibboleth identity provider and a Grouper authorization solution. The Grouper released attributes are consumed by the science gateway to authorize the access to specific web resources and the role management mechanism in Liferay provides the attribute-role mapping.

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An innovative workspace for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

10.7287/peerj.preprints.2817 ◽

2017 ◽

Author(s):

Alessandro Costa ◽

Eva Sciacca ◽

Fabio Vitello ◽

Ugo Becciani ◽

Pietro Massimino ◽

...

Keyword(s):

User Interfaces ◽

Gamma Ray ◽

Workflow Management ◽

User Interaction ◽

Telescope Array ◽

Cherenkov Telescope ◽

Science Gateway ◽

Workflow System ◽

Virtual Desktop ◽

Authentication And Authorization

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is an initiative to build the next generation, ground-based gamma-ray observatories. We present a prototype workspace developed at INAF that aims at providing innovative solutions for the CTA community. The workspace leverages open source technologies providing web access to a set of tools widely used by the CTA community. Two different user interaction models, connected to an authentication and authorization infrastructure, have been implemented in this workspace. The first one is a workflow management system accessed via a science gateway (based on the Liferay platform) and the second one is an interactive virtual desktop environment. The integrated workflow system allows to run applications used in astronomy and physics researches into distributed computing infrastructures (ranging from clusters to grids and clouds). The interactive desktop environment allows to use many software packages without any installation on local desktops exploiting their native graphical user interfaces. The science gateway and the interactive desktop environment are connected to the authentication and authorization infrastructure composed by a Shibboleth identity provider and a Grouper authorization solution. The Grouper released attributes are consumed by the science gateway to authorize the access to specific web resources and the role management mechanism in Liferay provides the attribute-role mapping.

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The Crab nebula variability at short time-scales with the Cherenkov telescope array

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ◽

10.1093/mnras/staa3599 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 501 (1) ◽

pp. 337-346

Author(s):

E Mestre ◽

E de Oña Wilhelmi ◽

D Khangulyan ◽

R Zanin ◽

F Acero ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Gamma Ray ◽

Crab Nebula ◽

Spectral Energy Distribution ◽

Spectral Energy ◽

Telescope Array ◽

Cherenkov Telescopes ◽

Cherenkov Telescope ◽

Emission Models ◽

Short Time ◽

The Crab Nebula

ABSTRACT Since 2009, several rapid and bright flares have been observed at high energies (>100 MeV) from the direction of the Crab nebula. Several hypotheses have been put forward to explain this phenomenon, but the origin is still unclear. The detection of counterparts at higher energies with the next generation of Cherenkov telescopes will be determinant to constrain the underlying emission mechanisms. We aim at studying the capability of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) to explore the physics behind the flares, by performing simulations of the Crab nebula spectral energy distribution, both in flaring and steady state, for different parameters related to the physical conditions in the nebula. In particular, we explore the data recorded by Fermi during two particular flares that occurred in 2011 and 2013. The expected GeV and TeV gamma-ray emission is derived using different radiation models. The resulting emission is convoluted with the CTA response and tested for detection, obtaining an exclusion region for the space of parameters that rule the different flare emission models. Our simulations show different scenarios that may be favourable for achieving the detection of the flares in Crab with CTA, in different regimes of energy. In particular, we find that observations with low sub-100 GeV energy threshold telescopes could provide the most model-constraining results.

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The Gamma-ray Cherenkov Telescope, an end-to end Schwarzschild-Couder telescope prototype proposed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

10.1117/12.2232082 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

J. L. Dournaux ◽

A. Abchiche ◽

D. Allan ◽

J. P. Amans ◽

T. P. Armstrong ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Gamma Ray ◽

Telescope Array ◽

Cherenkov Telescope ◽

End To End

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Gamma-ray anisotropies with the Cherenkov Telescope Array

10.22323/1.218.0029 ◽

2015 ◽

Author(s):

Mattia Fornasa

Keyword(s):

Gamma Ray ◽

Telescope Array ◽

Cherenkov Telescope

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The Large Magellanic Cloud with the Cherenkov Telescope Array

EPJ Web of Conferences ◽

10.1051/epjconf/201920901021 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 209 ◽

pp. 01021

Author(s):

María Isabel Bernardos ◽

María Benito ◽

Fabio Iocco ◽

Salvatore Mangano ◽

Olga Sergijenko ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Gamma Ray ◽

Region Of Interest ◽

Cosmic Ray ◽

Large Magellanic Cloud ◽

Magellanic Cloud ◽

Point Sources ◽

Detection Sensitivity ◽

Telescope Array ◽

Star Forming ◽

Cherenkov Telescope

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a spiral galaxy, satellite of the Milky way with a high star formation activity. It represents a unique laboratory for studying an extended and spatially resolved star-forming galaxy through gamma-ray observatories. Therefore, the LMC survey is one of the key science projects for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the next-generation ground-based gamma-ray observatory. In this document we present the work performed over the last year by the CTA working group dedicated to the LMC, in order to offer a first characterization of the LMC at TeV energies. We have performed detectability forecasts based on the expected CTA performance for all sources in the region of interest of the LMC with known emission at GeV energies and above. Based on previous observations made by Fermi-LAT and H.E.S.S. we have characterized all point sources, extended sources and diffuse emission produced by cosmic-ray propagation, extrapolating their spectra to CTA energies. Finally, we have characterized the signal expected by different annihilation mechanisms of dark matter (DM) particles within the LMC, computing the detection sensitivity curve for this target in the cross-section-to-mass plane.

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