Projects
The group concentrates all its efforts and human resources in the two major research projects in the VHE gamma-ray field, namely the MAGIC and CTA observatories, using the ground-based Gamma-Ray Cherenkov technique.
MAGIC is an observatory composed of two Cherenkov telescopes located in the Observatory Roque de Los Muchachos on the Canary Island of La Palma, one of the world’s most extensive facilities. The MAGIC design phase began in 1996 and saw its first light in 2004, initially with a single telescope. In 2009 took place the installation of a second twin telescope at the same site.
More information: http://www.magic.iac.es, http://magic.mppmu.mpg.de/.
The GAE participates in the collaboration since the project started with instrumentation designs, operational support, analysis tasks, and scientific production. With a particular focus on Pulsars and Pulsar Wind Nebulae physics, Blazar studies and Dark Matter searches.
CTA aims to build a next-generation Cherenkov telescope, which is expected to be open to the entire scientific community, unlike previous Cherenkov instruments. CTA will be composed of two arrays of telescopes. One array will be located in the southern hemisphere (Chile) and another in the northern hemisphere (La Palma). These two arrays will help in covering the whole sky. The CTA sensitivity will improve by orders of magnitude concerning current experiments and cover a much wider energy range. The project is in the prototyping phase with the active participation of our group, which concentrates on telescope camera signal processing, observatory data modelling, and advanced data analysis techniques. More information: http://www.cta-observatory.org/
The UCM-GAE group joined the Campus de Excelencia Internacional – Moncloa (CEI-M) in 2010, where has coordinated efforts with other groups, in order to reinforce the Laboratorio de Instrumentación Científica Avanzada – LICA thematic activity.