We present simulations of the very high energy (VHE) gamma-ray light curve of
the Crab pulsar as observed by the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). The CTA
pulse profile of the Crab pulsar is simulated with the specific goal of
determining the accuracy of the position of the interpulse. We fit the pulse
shape obtained by the MAGIC telescope with a three-Gaussian template and
rescale it to account for the different CTA instrumental and observational
configurations. Simulations are performed for different configurations of CTA
and for the ASTRI mini-array. The northern CTA configuration will provide an
improvement of a factor of ~3 in accuracy with an observing time comparable to
that of MAGIC (73 hours). Unless the VHE spectrum above 1 TeV behaves
differently from what we presently know, unreasonably long observing times are
required for a significant detection of the pulsations of the Crab pulsar with
the high-energy-range sub-arrays. We also found that an independent VHE timing
analysis is feasible with Large Size Telescopes (LSTs). CTA will provide a
significant improvement in determining the VHE pulse shape parameters necessary
to constrain theoretical models of the gamma-ray emission of the Crab pulsar.
One of such parameters is the shift in phase between peaks in the pulse profile
at VHE and in other energy bands that, if detected, may point to different
locations of the emission regions.Comment: 11 pages, 11 figures, 5 table
