I will present an update on the status of CTA.
CTAO's first Science Data Challenge (SDC) us currently in preparation. It will provide simulated science-ready (DL3) data products of a complex and realistic gamma-ray sky. The main objectives are to enable a broad scientific community to become familiar with the CTAO data products and scientific analysis tools, to serve as a test bed to for driving forward new algorithms and to verify...
Optical polarimetry is an identified area in which Australia can contribute to CTA. We are planning to construct a prototype polarimeter to be installed on one or more Australian optical telescopes. I will summarise the rationale for the project, give an update on our progress on potential telescope collaborators, and discuss the design process for the instrument.
An Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescope (IACT) site in Australia, as part of a worldwide network of IACTs, would be crucial for achieving 24-hour all-sky coverage of the GeV to TeV sky for transient followup and continuous source monitoring. Extending on previous work which compared the performance of different small IACT array configurations, the effect of implementing a stereoscopic trigger to...
We use the simulation software "GALPROP" to model the Milky Way's diffuse TeV gamma-ray emission and how the diffuse emission will vary over time. We compare GALPROP's predictions to observational data, investigating how the emission will impact the forthcoming CTA Observatory's Galactic plane survey.
High-energy gamma rays and neutrinos can be produced due to the hadronic interactions between protons escaping particle accelerators such as supernova remnants (SNRs) and nearby target material such as molecular clouds (MCs). By modelling the diffusion of protons escaping SNRs and interacting with nearby MCs in our Galaxy, we can predict the resulting gamma-ray and neutrino fluxes at Earth....
HESS J1825-137 is one of the most powerful and luminous TeV gamma-ray pulsar wind nebulae (PWN). This makes HESS J1825-137 an excellent laboratory to study particle transportation in and around the powering pulsar. We have modelled the diffusive and advective transport of electrons from the powering pulsar, PSR 1826-1334. The resulting X-ray and gamma-ray emission was predicted through...
In our Bayesian WIMP detection project, we're refining our results published in 2112.10371.
I will present a new statistical approach to the problem of inferring the properties of point-source populations. This method will be shown to be superior to existing methods in the context of X-ray astronomy.
The globular cluster Omega Centauri is the most massive and luminous cluster in the Galaxy. The gamma-ray source FL8Y 1326.7-4729 is coincident with the core of the cluster, leading to speculation that hitherto unknown radio pulsars or annihilating dark matter may be present in the cluster core. We discovered five millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in Omega Centauri and have been monitoring these...
Terzan 5 has the largest population of millisecond pulsars of any globular cluster in the Galaxy. It is also unique in having an associated TeV source. The centroid of the TeV source, however, is measurably displaced away from the cluster. I will discuss a scenario motivated by cosmic ray transport physics than explains this peculiar displacement.
A brief update on the status of very high energy gamma ray detection from novae with the CTA will be given.
This is an exciting time for the discovery of SNRs in our and other nearby galaxies. I will report the discovery of J0624-6948, a low-surface brightness radio ring, lying between the Galactic Plane and the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). It was first detected at 888 MHz with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), and with a diameter of ~196 arcsec. This source has...
Pulsars lose rotational energy through a wind of ultrarelativistic particles, and the synchrotron emission that arises will be observable in the form of a pulsar wind nebula (PWN). For a pulsar moving supersonically through the ambient medium, the PWN is characterised by a bow-shock shape around the pulsar and cometary tail. Currently, there are approximately 30 objects of this type, and...
