High Energy Astrophysics with VERITAS

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This application is for funding to support McGill participation in the VERITAS gamma-ray astronomy project. VERITAS is one of four new-generation gamma-ray astronomy detectors world-wide. It consists of an array of four large telescopes designed to detect ultraviolet and blue light emitted by the energetic electrons and positrons produced when high-energy astrophysical gamma-rays interact in the upper atmosphere. Such gamma-rays are produced in extreme environments such as supernova remnants and active galactic nuclei. There may also be gamma-rays which come from more exotic origins such as annihilation of dark-matter particles in the cores of galaxies or from evaporation of primordial black holes. As such, they could provide clues to particle physics at energies beyond what can be probed at earth-bound accelerators. The VERITAS array is nearing completion in southern Arizona. Two of the four telescopes are taking data together and the third is being commissioned. Telescope four will be complete at the beginning of 2007 and the project will move from the construction phase to the observing and analysis phase. We plan to survey the parts of our galaxy visible from our site and look for new sources with a sensitivity an order of magnitude better than previous generation detectors. We will also carry out multiwavelength observations using data from X-ray, optical and radio telescopes as well as the new, lower energy, gamma-ray satellite, GLAST, due to be launched in the fall of 2007. It is an exciting time for the young science of gamma-ray astrophysics.