Scientific Seminars

Cherenkov Emission and the IACT Technique: Historical Excursion, From the Very Early Days Till Nowadays

Razmik Mirzoyan
MPI Munich

2011-11-22    11.00    Merate - Biblioteca Merate

In my presentation I will try to go back in time to the very beginning of the discovery of an emission that later on has got the name Cherenkov. This emission is very widely used in experimental physics and is the cornerstone of a few techniques and methods both in astro particle and particle physics. The discovery of that emission is a striking example how a deep study of a problem by a young researcher Cherenkov who, unlike the researchers before him, could reveal and measure the basic features of the novel phenomenon. It took some 20 years after that discovery until the cosmic ray induced Cherenkov emission in the atmosphere has been discovered. But after that milestone the researchers understood the great potential of the method and started exploring it for ground-based gamma astrophysics. Today the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope technique is the basis of the ground-based astrophysics of very high energy gamma ray, more than 100 gamma sources of both galactic and extragalactic origin have been discovered in the energy range 25GeV ? 100 TeV by the current instruments. These brought us very close to the understanding of the origin of cosmic rays and provide clues to the highest energy phenomena in the universe.