Gamma Connection: Building the CTAO community in Latin America

9 Dec 2026, 13:00 → 12 Dec 2026, 17:00 America/Santiago

Wednesday 9 December

13:00 → 14:30 Welcome light lunch

14:30 → 16:00 Status and Future Perspectives in Gamma-Ray Astronomy

14:30 Gamma-ray astronomy in the MWL/MM

Speaker: Dr Roberta Zanin (CTAO)

15:00 CTAO performance

Speaker: David Green (CTAO)

15:30 SWGO performance

Speaker: Claudio Dib (CCTVal, Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria)

16:00 → 16:30 Coffee break

16:30 → 17:55 Status and Future Perspectives in Gamma-Ray Astronomy

16:30 CTAO as open observatory

Speaker: Ivana Batković (CTAO Project Science Office)

16:52 LST-1 highlights

Speaker: Alicia Lopez-Oramas (Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias and Departamento de Astrofisica, Universidad de La Laguna)

17:22 Demo session: taking ASTRI data from Chile

Speaker: Mauricio Araya (CCTVal, Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria)

Thursday 10 December

09:00 → 10:40 Cosmic-Ray Physics

09:00 Diffuse emission

Speaker: Quentin REMY (MPIK Heidelberg)

09:30 State-of-art results in PeVatrons searches

Speaker: Jim Hinton (Max-Planck-Institut fur Kernphysik)

10:00 Microquasar remnants in the CTAO era: hidden PeVatrons and extended gamma-ray emission

Speaker: Leandro Abaroa

10:22 Halo Hunting Around PSR J0622+3749 in the CTAO Era

Speaker: Samik Dutta

10:40 → 11:10 Coffee break

11:10 → 13:02 Cosmic-Ray Physics

11:10 Exploring the connection between the central source HESS J1745-290 and Sgr A* as a possible PeVatron

Speaker: Claudio Muena

11:25 High-Energy Emission Analysis from the Galactic Center Region with HAWC and IceCube

Speaker: Sohyoun Yun Carcamo

11:40 A Search for New Classes of Gamma-ray Galactic Sources

Speaker: Maria Victoria del Valle (Instituto de Astronomia, Geofisico, e Ciencias Atmosfericas - Universidade de Sao Paulo)

12:17 Highlights on the UHE cosmic rays field

Speaker: Geraldina Golup

12:47 Gamma-Ray Emission from Fornax A and Its Possible Connection to UHECRs

Speaker: Victor Barbosa Martins (Ruhr Uni Bochum (RUB))

13:02 → 14:00 Lunch break

14:00 → 16:00 Extreme Astrophysical Environments

14:00 Highlights on GRBs in gamma rays (alternative to the hadronic emission)

Speaker: Arnau Aguasca-Cabot (Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE))

14:30 AGN variability from radio to X-rays: how can gamma rays help completing the picture?

Speaker: Paulina Lira

15:00 Seyfert galaxies & neutrinos

Speaker: Lucas Manuel Pasquevich

15:15 From Gamma-ray Absorption Features to Neutrinos: Tracing the Environments of BL Lac Objects

Speaker: Dr Luca Foffano (INAF - IAPS - Rome)

15:30 Particle Acceleration and Cooling Rates in FR0 jets

Speaker: Bernardo Da Silva

15:45 Simulations of TeV blazar halos for the CTAO

Speaker: Constanza Domínguez

16:00 → 16:30 Coffee break

16:30 → 17:30 Extreme Astrophysical Environments

16:30 The Non-Thermal Engine of NGC 4278: Radio Structures and CTAO prospects

Speaker: Paula Kornecki (Universidad de Chile)

16:45 The Non-Thermal Engine of NGC 4278: Radio Structures and CTAO prospects

Speaker: Walter Max-Moerbeck (Universidad de Chile)

17:00 Characterization of blazar variability in the radio and gamma-ray bands

Speaker: Antonella Zavala Cerda

17:15 Long-Term Monitoring High-Quality Spectral Sample, and Flare Follow-up programs

Speaker: José Mendez

Friday 11 December

09:00 → 10:30 Fundamental Physics

09:00 Integalactic Magnetic Fields

Speaker: Paolo Da Vela (INFAF OAS Bologna)

09:30 Review: search of DM in gamma-rays

Speaker: Ivana Batković (CTAO Project Science Office)

10:00 Search for Dark Matter in the Era of the CTAO and SWGO Experiment

Speaker: Ana Clara Da Rocha e Silvia

10:15 SWGO Sensitivity to Dark-Matter Spikes Around Intermediate-Mass Black Holes

Speaker: David Alonso Luzquiños Saavedra

10:30 → 11:00 Coffee break

11:00 → 12:30 Fundamental Physics

11:00 Probing Dark Matter Models in the Galactic Centre: Sensitivity Prospects and Model Discrimination with SWGO

Speaker: Simranjeet Kaur

11:15 Very special relativity

Speaker: Jorge Alfaro

11:30 Plasma Energization in the Stratified Collisionless Magnetorotational Instability

Speaker: Astor Sandoval

11:45 Gamma/Hadron Separation Using Graph Neural Networks for The SWGO Observatory

Speaker: Erick Mpangi Musungu

12:00 Results from the prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope Upgraded Camera

Speaker: Orisvaldo Salviano Neto (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

12:15 Multitask learning for stereoscopic reconstruction of gamma-ray showers in CTAO’s LSTs

Speaker: Derlei Jurandir da Silva

13:00 → 14:00 Lunch break

14:00 → 16:35 Synergies and Opportunities

14:00 Synergies CTAO - SWGO

Speaker: Bruno Khélifi (APC, Université Paris Diderot-IN2P3/CNRS)

14:30 Synergies CTAO - VLT

Speaker: Mar Carretero-Castrillo (ICCUBB)

15:00 Synergies CTAO - ALMA

Speaker: Paola Andreani (ESO)

15:30 Synergies CTAO - Centimeter Radio Facilities

Speaker: Paula Benaglia

16:00 Synergies CTAO - Gravitational Waves

Speaker: Riccardo Sturani

16:35 → 17:05 Coffee break

17:05 → 18:05 Synergies and Opportunities

17:05 How to request CTAO observing time

Speaker: Dr Roberta Zanin (CTAO)

17:27 The Latin American Centre for Physics: opportunities

Speaker: Ulisses Barres de Almeida (Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas)

Saturday 12 December

09:00 → 10:30 Hands-On: How to analyse CTAO data

10:30 → 11:00 Coffee break

11:00 → 13:00 Hands-On: How to analyse CTAO data

13:00 → 14:00 Lunch break

14:00 → 17:00 Hands-On: How to analyse CTAO data