The Gamma ray Group at IFAE ranks amongst the leading groups worldwide in Very High Energy Gamma Ray astronomy with Cherenkov Telescopes. It co-leads the MAGIC Telescopes Observatory since its beginning back in 1997 and is a key contributor to the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) project since its inception back in 2006.
Its activities in the field span from authoring many of the highest impact scientific publications in MAGIC to being responsible for complex electronic, mechanics, control and analysis software and MC simulations for the MAGIC telescopes and the Large Size Telescope (LST) of CTA. In both collaborations the participation of IFAE is of the highest impact and visibility.
IFAE has been one of the leading groups for the installation and commissioning of the first LST and the development of CTA Northern site at La Palma. The institute is currently involved in the production and integration of the next three cameras for the LSTs and the validation of the Raman LIDAR pathfinder for CTA. In addition, IFAE is responsible for significant hardware elements of the MAGIC telescopes and for its Data Centre.
The group is very active in the analysis and interpretation of MAGIC observations covering a broad range of interests, including Galactic sources, Active Galactic Nuclei and Fundamental Physics. The group is also very involved on the analysis of the LST1 data, with the goal of starting its scientific exploitation in the near future, both as a standalone instrument and in joint observations with MAGIC.