The Very-High-Energy Gamma-Ray Sky
Felix Aharonian1,2
Over the past few years, very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy
has emerged as a truly observational discipline, with many detected
sources representing different galactic and extragalactic source
populations—supernova remnants, pulsar wind nebulae, giant
molecular clouds, star formation regions, compact binary systems,
and active galactic nuclei. It is expected that observations
with the next generation of stereoscopic arrays of imaging atmospheric
Cherenkov telescopes over a very broad energy range from 10
10 to 10
15 electron volts will dramatically increase the number
of very-high-energy gamma-ray sources, thus having a huge impact
on the development of astrophysics, cosmology, and particle
astrophysics.
2 Max Planck Institut fur Kernphysik, Heidelberg, Germany.
E-mail: Felix.Aharonian{at}mpi-hd.mpg.de
