Cherenkov Telescope Array Status Report

Abstract

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be the next generation of ground based gamma-ray telescopes allowing us to study very high energy phenomena in the Universe. CTA aims to gain about a factor of ten in sensitivity compared to current experiments, extending the accessible gamma-ray energy range from a few tens of GeV to some hundreds of TeV. This increased gamma-ray source sensitivity, as well as the expected enhanced energy and spatial resolution, will allow exciting new insights in some key science topics. Additionally, CTA will provide a full sky-coverage by featuring the array located in two sites in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. This paper will describe the status of CTA and highlight some of CTA's key science themes; namely the origin of relativistic cosmic particles, the study of cosmological effects on gamma-ray propagation and the search for annihilating dark matter particles.