This is a review on beam tomography research at Daresbury. The research has focussed on development of normalised phase space techniques. It starts with the idea of sampling tomographic projections at equal phase advances and shows that this would gi
ve the optimal reconstruction results. This idea has influenced the design, construction and operation of the tomography sections at the Photo Injector Test Facility at Zeuthen (PITZ) and at the Accelerator and Laser in Combined Experiments (ALICE) at Daresbury. The theoretical justification of this idea is later developed through simulations and analysis of the measurements results at ALICE. The mathematical formalism is constructed around the normalised phase space and the idea of equal phase advances become the basis of this. This formalism is applied to a variety of experimental and simulated situations and shown to be useful in improving resolution, increasing reliability and providing diagnostic information. In this review, we also present the simplifying concepts, formalisms and simulation tools that we have developed.
The VERITAS telescope array has been operating smoothly since 2007, and has detected gamma-ray emission above 100 GeV from 40 astrophysical sources. These include blazars, pulsar wind nebulae, supernova remnants, gamma-ray binary systems, a starburst
galaxy, a radio galaxy, the Crab pulsar, and gamma-ray sources whose origin remains unidentified. In 2009, the array was reconfigured, greatly improving the sensitivity. We summarize the current status of the observatory, describe some of the scientific highlights since 2009, and outline plans for the future.
The population of binary systems known to emit in the GeV and TeV bands consists of only a few firmly identified Galactic sources. These rare objects constitute extreme particle accelerators operating under varying, but regularly repeating, condition
s. As such, they provide access to a unique laboratory in which to study particle acceleration, and the nature of gamma-ray production, emission and absorption processes near compact objects. Here we review the current observational status of the field, and discuss some of the recent interpretations of the results.
VERITAS, an Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope (IACT) system for gammma-ray astronomy in the GeV-TeV range, has recently completed its first season of observations with a full array of four telescopes. A number of astrophysical gamma-ray sources
have been detected, both galactic and extragalactic, including sources previously unknown at TeV energies. We describe the status of the array and some highlight results, and assess the technical performance, sensitivity and shower reconstruction capabilities.
The recent discovery by the Pierre Auger collaboration of anisotropy in the arrival directions of the highest energy cosmic rays, correlated with the positions of nearby active galactic nuclei, encourages the search for counterpart TeV gamma-ray emis
sion. Approximately half of the sky viewed by the southern hemisphere Pierre Auger experiment is also visible at reasonable elevations for the northern hemisphere gamma-ray telescope array, VERITAS. We report on first observations by VERITAS of regions associated with the arrival directions of ultra-high energy cosmic ray events.
