TAIGA

stands for “Tunka Advanced Instrument for cosmic ray physics and Gamma Astronomy” and is a complex, hybrid detector system for ground-based gamma-ray astronomy from a few TeV to several PeV, and for cosmic ray studies from 100 TeV to several 100′s of PeV. TAIGA will search for ”Pevatrons” (ultra-high energy gamma-ray sources) and measure the composition and spectrum of cosmic rays in the transition region from Galactic to Extragalactic origin. The key idea of the Gamma-Observatory TAIGA is the joint operation of the wide-angle and narrow-angle Cherenkov detectors and scintillation detectors. TAIGA includes TAIGA-HiSCORE – an array of wide-angle integrating air Cherenkov stations, TAIGA-IACT – an array of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes, and TAIGA-Muon – a scintillation array on the surface and underground.

This multi-component detector is aimed for cosmic and gamma rays studies within five orders of magnitude in energy and will become one of the main detectors in the TeV till 100’s of PeV energy range.

The main tasks of the Gamma-Observatory:

• search for galactic sources of gamma-quanta with energies higher than 20-30 TeV

• studies of gamma-radiation fluxes from known sources in the energy range of higher than 20-30 TeV at the recorded level of sensitivity

• studies of high energy part of gamma radiation spectrum from the most bright blazars with aim to study gamma-quanta absorption on intergalactic background radiation (infrared and microwave) and search for axion-photon transitions

• search for possible violations of Lorenz-invariance and axion-photon transitions which in a new approach to search of dark matter in the Universe

The TAIGA Collaboration

includes

15 institutions & organizations from 4 countries: 

Irkutsk State University (Russia);

Moscow State University (Russia);

Max Planck Institute for Physics (Germany);

National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Russia);

DESY (Germany); University of Hamburg (Germany);

Institute for Nuclear Research of RAS (Russia);

Joint Institute for Nuclear Research (Russia);

Humboldt-University in Berlin (Germany);

Pushkov Institute of Terrestrial Magnetism, Ionosphere and Radio Wave Propagation of RAS (Russia);

Altai State University (Russia);

Institute of Space Science (Romania);

University of Turin (Italy);

Budker Institute of Nuclear Physics of SB RAS (Russia);

Novosibirsk State University (Russia).