AGIS

AGIS is a future, large-scale atmospheric Cherenkov telescope array for high-energy gamma-ray astrophysics. The design of AGIS has not been finalized, but the array is visualized to consist of 50-100 Cherenkov telescopes covering an area of ~1 square-km. AGIS would be a major new facilty that would follow up on the success of current instruments, such as VERITAS and GLAST. The AGIS collaboration is currently involve din R&D work on novel telescope and camera designs.

ANITA

A balloon-borne experiment that will fly over Antarctica in a project to study cosmic neutrinos. Cosmic neutrinos are generated in the collisions between cosmic rays and the universe's microwave photon background at incredible energies that could never be reached on Earth. They therefore provide an exciting window into very high energy physical phenomena like the generation of micro-black holes and other exotic occurances that could demonstrate the unity of forces in the universe.

The Auger Project studies the highest energy particles in the cosmos-- particles with energies above 10²⁰ eV, the same energy in a well-hit base ball! The project is a collaboration of scientists from around the world. The UCLA group is playing an important part in the construction of the first Auger observatory in Argentina. Shown here are some of the U.S. scientists at Fermilab next to one of the first Auger detectors.

STACEE

STACEE (Solar Tower Atmospheric Cherenkov Effect Experiment) is an operating ground-based gamma-ray telescope using the atmospheric Cherenkov technique. STACEE uses the solar mirror array of the National Solar Thermal Test Facility (near Albuquerque, NM, USA) to make gamma-ray observations at energies between 50 and 500 GeV. Each of the solar mirrors is huge (6.1m x 6.1m) -- STACEE uses 64 of them.

VERITAS

VERITAS (Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System) is a new, state-of-the-art ground-based gamma-ray observatory. VERITAS uses an array of four large atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes to achive unprecedented sensitivity to sources of gamma rays in the energy range between 50 GeV and 50 TeV. Located on Mt. Hopkins in southern Arizona, USA, the array became fully operational in 2007 and is now carrying out a full observing program. VERITAS is expected to operate well into the next decade.