Estimation of the height of the first interaction in gamma-ray showers observed by Cherenkov telescopes

Very high energy gamma rays entering the atmosphere initiate Extensive Air Showers (EAS). The Cherenkov light induced by an EAS can be observed by ground-based telescopes to study the primary gamma rays. An important parameter of an EAS, determining its evolution, is the height of the first interaction of the primary particle. However, this variable cannot be directly measured by Cherenkov telescopes. We study two simple, independent methods for the estimation of the first interaction height. We test the methods using the Monte Carlo simulations for the 4 Large Size Telescopes (LST) that are part of the currently constructed Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) Observatory. We find that using such an estimated parameter in the gamma/hadron separation can bring a mild improvement (~10-20%) in the sensitivity in the energy range ~30-200 GeV.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Astroparticle Physic

Analysis techniques and performance of the Domino Ring Sampler version 4 based readout for the MAGIC telescopes

Recently the readout of the MAGIC telescopes has been upgraded to a new system based on the Domino Ring Sampler version 4 chip. We present the analysis techniques and the signal extraction performance studies of this system. We study the behaviour of the baseline, the noise, the cross-talk, the linearity and the time resolution. We investigate also the optimal signal extraction. In addition we show some of the analysis techniques specific to the readout based on the Domino Ring Sampler version 2 chip, previously used in the MAGIC II telescope.Comment: 13 pages, 20 figures, 1 table, Accepted for publication in NIM