New Generation Atmospheric Cherenkov Detectors

High energy gamma-ray astronomy has been established during the last decade through the launch of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) and the success of its ground-based counterpart, the imaging atmospheric Cherenkov technique. In the aftermath of their important and surprising scientific results a worldwide effort developing and designing new generation atmospheric Cherenkov detectors is underway. These novel instruments will have higher sensitivity at E > 250 GeV, but most importantly, will be able to close the unexplored energy gap between 20 GeV and 250 GeV. Several ground-based detectors are proposed or under construction. Aspects of the techniques used and sensitivity are discussed in this overview paper. The instruments cover largely complementary energy ranges and together are expected to explore the gamma-ray sky between 20 GeV and 100 TeV with unprecedented sensitivity.Comment: 13 pages, 4 Figures, Invited talk at the VERITAS Workshop on TeV Astrophysics of Extragalactic Sources, eds. M. Catanese and T. Weekes, to be published in Astroparticle Physic

Instrumented Water Tanks can Improve Air Shower Detector Sensitivity

Previous works have shown that water Cherenkov detectors have superior sensitivity to those of scintillation counters as applied to detecting extensive air showers (EAS). This is in large part due to their much higher sensitivity to EAS photons which are more than five times more numerous than EAS electrons. Large area water Cherenkov detectors can be constructed relatively cheaply and operated reliably. A sparse detector array has been designed which uses these types of detectors to substantially increase the area over which the Milagro Gamma Ray Observatory collects EAS information. Improvements to the Milagro detector's performance characteristics and sensitivity derived from this array and preliminary results from a prototype array currently installed near the Milagro detector will be presented.Comment: 4 pages, submitted to XXVI International Cosmic Ray Conference, Salt Lake Cit

Controlling Cherenkov angles with resonance transition radiation

Cherenkov radiation provides a valuable way to identify high energy particles in a wide momentum range, through the relation between the particle velocity and the Cherenkov angle. However, since the Cherenkov angle depends only on material's permittivity, the material unavoidably sets a fundamental limit to the momentum coverage and sensitivity of Cherenkov detectors. For example, Ring Imaging Cherenkov detectors must employ materials transparent to the frequency of interest as well as possessing permittivities close to unity to identify particles in the multi GeV range, and thus are often limited to large gas chambers. It would be extremely important albeit challenging to lift this fundamental limit and control Cherenkov angles as preferred. Here we propose a new mechanism that uses constructive interference of resonance transition radiation from photonic crystals to generate both forward and backward Cherenkov radiation. This mechanism can control Cherenkov angles in a flexible way with high sensitivity to any desired range of velocities. Photonic crystals thus overcome the severe material limit for Cherenkov detectors, enabling the use of transparent materials with arbitrary values of permittivity, and provide a promising option suited for identification of particles at high energy with enhanced sensitivity.Comment: There are 16 pages and 4 figures for the manuscript. Supplementary information with 18 pages and 5 figures, appended at the end of the file with the manuscript. Source files in Word format converted to PDF. Submitted to Nature Physic

Discovery potential for supernova relic neutrinos with slow liquid scintillator detectors

Detection of supernova relic neutrinos could provide key support for our current understanding of stellar and cosmological evolution, and precise measurements of these neutrinos could yield novel insights into the universe. In this paper, we studied the detection potential of supernova relic neutrinos using linear alkyl benzene (LAB) as a slow liquid scintillator. The linear alkyl benzene features good separation of Cherenkov and scintillation lights, thereby providing a new route for particle identification. We further addressed key issues in current experiments, including (1) the charged current background of atmospheric neutrinos in water Cherenkov detectors and (2) the neutral current background of atmospheric neutrinos in typical liquid scintillator detectors. A kiloton-scale LAB detector at Jinping with $\mathcal{O}$(10) years of data could discover supernova relic neutrinos with a sensitivity comparable to that of large-volume water Cherenkov detectors, typical liquid scintillator detectors, and liquid argon detectors.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure

Detection of high energy electrons by Cherenkov radiation in diamond

Cherenkov detectors for detection of high energy particles are widely used. To obtain the necessary information about the characteristics of the particles (energy, type, etc.) can by analyze of the Cherenkov radiation (CR). Cherenkov detectors in various fields of science and technology are used. However, there are Cherenkov detectors applications, for example, in thermonuclear reactors and spacecraft, where special requirements are imposed on the radiator material. One of the promising radiator materials with high temperature and radiation resistance is diamond. In addition, the diamond has a low energy threshold for CR due to its high refractive inde

Cherenkov Detectors Fast Simulation Using Neural Networks

We propose a way to simulate Cherenkov detector response using a generative adversarial neural network to bypass low-level details. This network is trained to reproduce high level features of the simulated detector events based on input observables of incident particles. This allows the dramatic increase of simulation speed. We demonstrate that this approach provides simulation precision which is consistent with the baseline and discuss possible implications of these results.Comment: In proceedings of 10th International Workshop on Ring Imaging Cherenkov Detector