Nine years of physics with the MAGIC gamma ray telescopes

March 1, 2013
3:00pm to 4:30pm

Blue Room

Specialist level
Speaker: 
Juan Cortina
Institution: 
Instituto de Física de Altas Energías (IFAE)
Location&Place: 

Blue Room

Abstract: 

During the past nine years the MAGIC telescope at the island of La Palma have explored the Very High Energy (VHE, >100 GeV) gamma ray sky with unprecedented sensitivity. VHE represents a new window of astronomy: it does not only offer a new handle to understand the rare astrophysical objects which are able to accelerate particles to these high energies, butalso enables to measure key astrophysical parameters such as the density of Cosmic Rays in our galaxy and in external galaxies or clusters of galaxies, the density of the Extragalactic Background Light, or the magnitude of the Intergalactic Magnetic Fields. Instruments such as MAGIC may also shed light onFundamental Physics issues such as the nature and distribution of Dark Matter in our Universe. I will make a personally biased selection of results of MAGIC during these years of operation and briefly comment on the prospects of the instrument for the near future.

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