The Major Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov Telescopes (MAGIC)

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Blanch, Oscar, Sitarek, Julian
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Blanch, Oscar
Sitarek, Julian
author_facet Blanch, Oscar
Sitarek, Julian
contents The MAGIC telescopes, located at Observatorio El Roque de los Muchachos (La Palma, Spain) are two Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes observing the Very High Energy (VHE) gamma rays. They are run by an international collaboration composed of over 40 institutions from 12 countries. The first telescope was inaugurated in October 2003. The commissioning of the second finished in 2008. The MAGIC telescopes were designed to lower the energies to which ground based telescopes had access as well as to be able to point to any direction in the sky in less than 25 seconds. The former required the large reflective surface of 17 meters as well as an effort to optimise the mirror reflectivity and photo sensor sensitivity. The latter was achieved by minimising the weight of the full instrument using for instance carbon fibre reinforced plastic tubes for the mirror frame. The sensitivity of the MAGIC telescopes have been improving over the years thanks to hardware upgrades as well as new analysis techniques, which allowed the collaboration to keep a rich scientific program. The discovery of VHE emission from Gamma Ray Bursts and pulsars have called for a revision of the models that explain the production of gamma rays there. Both the observation of sources in flaring state as well as a systematic monitoring of sources have provided valuable data to better understand astrophysical sources both in our Galaxy and outside it. Relevant constraints on fundamental quantities like dark matter cross-section, quantum gravity scale and density of extragalactic background light have also been extracted from the observations.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_22585
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Major Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov Telescopes (MAGIC)
Blanch, Oscar
Sitarek, Julian
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
The MAGIC telescopes, located at Observatorio El Roque de los Muchachos (La Palma, Spain) are two Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescopes observing the Very High Energy (VHE) gamma rays. They are run by an international collaboration composed of over 40 institutions from 12 countries. The first telescope was inaugurated in October 2003. The commissioning of the second finished in 2008. The MAGIC telescopes were designed to lower the energies to which ground based telescopes had access as well as to be able to point to any direction in the sky in less than 25 seconds. The former required the large reflective surface of 17 meters as well as an effort to optimise the mirror reflectivity and photo sensor sensitivity. The latter was achieved by minimising the weight of the full instrument using for instance carbon fibre reinforced plastic tubes for the mirror frame. The sensitivity of the MAGIC telescopes have been improving over the years thanks to hardware upgrades as well as new analysis techniques, which allowed the collaboration to keep a rich scientific program. The discovery of VHE emission from Gamma Ray Bursts and pulsars have called for a revision of the models that explain the production of gamma rays there. Both the observation of sources in flaring state as well as a systematic monitoring of sources have provided valuable data to better understand astrophysical sources both in our Galaxy and outside it. Relevant constraints on fundamental quantities like dark matter cross-section, quantum gravity scale and density of extragalactic background light have also been extracted from the observations.
title The Major Gamma-ray Imaging Cherenkov Telescopes (MAGIC)
topic Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.22585