The MAGIC Telescope is an Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescope (IACT) located on the Canary island of La Palma (28.80 N, 17.90 W), at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (2200 m above see level). The challenging goal of the experiment is to observe with high sensitivity the energy region between 30 GeV and 300 GeV in g-ray astronomy, which is unexplored up to now, by lowering the threshold energy Eth as compared to the previous generation of IACTs. Observations in this new window of the electromagnetic spectrum are expected to provide key data for the understanding of a wide variety of astrophysical phenomena belonging to the so-called ~Snon-thermal Universe~T, like the acceleration processes in Active Galactic Nuclei, the radiation mechanisms of pulsars and Supernova Remnants, and the enigmatic Gamma Ray Bursts. In the talk, the working principle of IACTs as instruments for performing g-ray astronomy will be shortly reviewed, and the MAGIC telescope will be describ! ed, stressing the main technologic developments carried out in order to achieve the required performance. The current status of the project will be given, and the observations of several g-ray sources will be reported.
The Sagittarius dwarf galaxy was discovered in 1994; it is the closest (25kpc) of the 9 established Dwarf spheroidal companions of the Milky Way galaxy and ranks among the largest and brightest. The mass-to-light ratio is estimated to be approximately 25, which makes it an excellent candidate for WIMP annihilation searches with GLAST. I will review the backgrounds and analysis for a WIMP annihilation search in this dwarf galaxy, and give a back-of-the envelope estimate of GLAST sensitivity. I will also discuss what improvements on instrumentation would be required if we wanted to improve the sensitivity to this potential WIMP annihilation source in future experiments.
We are developing next generation of Compton telescopes to explore the gamma-ray universe in an energy band 0.05-20 MeV, which is not well covered by the present or near-future missions. The key feature of such telescopes is the high spectral resolution to achieve good angular resolution and large background rejection capability. It can also measure the polarization of the gamma-ray, which provides rich information to study particle acceleration mechanisms in astronomical objects.
I will describe science objectives, instrument designs and test results from prototype detectors. In particular, energy resolution, angular resolution and polarization capabilities have been measured.