Characterization of San Antonio de los Cobres for a Cherenkov telescope array in energy range from 20 GeV to 130 GeV

H. ASOREY; D. MELO; I. ALLEKOTE; G. DEPAOLA; A. ETCHEGOYEN; M. GÓMEZ BERISSO; M.C. MEDINA; D. RAVIGNANI; F. SÁNCHEZ; A. SEDOSKI

Rio de Janeiro

Conferencia; The 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC2013); 2013

International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas.

In this work we study the detection of Cherenkov photons produced by particle showers developed in the atmosphere when a charged particle or a gamma ray interacts with the medium in the energy range from 20 GeV to 130 GeV. Extensive air showers are simulated with CORSIKA, using a large aperture telescope to collect the photons that arrive at the Earth?s surface. The geographic site chosen for our simulations is San Antonio de los Cobres (SAC), which is currently one of the five candidate sites in the southern Hemisphere for the installation of Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). The simulations include seasonal atmospheric profiles (air density, vertical atmospheric depth and air refractive index as a function of altitude), derived from a dedicated analysis of GDAS data (Global Data Assimilation System). The number of photons collected by the telescope is compared with the photons originated by background cosmic rays (from protons to iron). The results are presented and discussed in terms of each energy and the corresponding shower-telescope distance.