Event reconstruction techniques for the wide-angle air Cherenkov detector HiSCORE

Wide-angle, non-imaging air Cherenkov detectors provide a way to observe cosmic gamma-rays which is complementary to observations by imaging Cherenkov telescopes. Their particular strength lies in the multi-TeV to ultra high energy range (E-gamma > 30 TeV), where large effective areas, yet small light sensitive areas per detector station are needed. To exploit this potential to full extent, a large station spacing is required to achieve a large effective area at a reasonable effort. In such a detector, the low number of signals per event, the absence of imaging information, and the poor signal to noise ratio of Cherenkov light to night sky brightness pose considerable challenges for the event reconstruction, especially the gamma hadron separation. The event reconstruction presented in this paper has been developed for the wide-angle detector HiSCORE, but the concepts may be applied more generically. It is tested on simulated data in the 10 TeV to 5 PeV energy range using the air shower simulation CORSIKA and the HiSCORE detector simulation sim_score. For the tests, a regular grid of 22 x 22 detector stations with a spacing of 150 m is assumed, covering an area of 10 km(2). The angular resolution of individual events is found to be about 0.3 degrees near the energy threshold, improving to below 0.1 degrees at higher energies. The relative energy resolution is 20% at the threshold and improves to 10% at higher energies. Several parameters for gamma hadron separation are described. With a combination of these parameters, 80-90% of the hadronic background can be suppressed, while about 60% of the gamma-ray events are retained. The point source sensitivity to gamma-ray sources is estimated, using conservative assumptions, to be about 8 x 10(-13) erg s(-1) cm(-2) at 100 TeV gamma-ray energy for a 10 km(2) array. With more optimistic assumptions, and a 100 km(2) array, a sensitivity of about 1 x 10(-13) erg s(-1) cm(-2) can be achieved (at 100 TeV). Even in the former case the detector is sensitive enough to measure the continuation of currently known gamma-ray spectra into the ultra high energy domain. Due to its large field of view of 0.6 sr it also offers a great potential for the discovery of new gamma-ray sources at the so far largely unexplored energies of 100 TeV and above. (c) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.