Scientific prospects for a mini-array of ASTRI telescopes: a gamma-ray
  TeV data challenge
  ASTRI is a project aiming at the realization of a gamma-ray imaging Cherenkov
telescope that observes the sky in the TeV band. Recently, the development of a
mini-array (MA) of ASTRI telescopes has been funded by the Istituto Nazionale
di Astrofisica. The ASTRI Comprehensive Data Challenge (ACDC) project aims at
optimizing the scientific exploitation and analysis techniques of the ASTRI MA,
by performing a complete end-to-end simulation of a tentative scientific
program, from the generation of suitable instrument response functions to the
proposal, selection, analysis, and interpretation of the simulated data. We
assumed that the MA will comprise nine ASTRI telescopes arranged in a (almost)
square geometry (mean distance between telescopes of ~250m). We simulated three
years of observations, adopting a realistic pointing plan that takes into
account, for each field, visibility constraints for an assumed site in Paranal
(Chile) and observational time slots in dark sky conditions. We simulated the
observations of nineteen Galactic and extragalactic fields selected for their
scientific interest, including several classes of objects (such as pulsar wind
nebulae, supernova remnants, gamma-ray binaries etc), for a total of 81
point-like and extended sources. Here we present an overview of the ACDC
project, providing details on the different software packages needed to carry
out the simulated three-years operation of the ASTRI MA. We discuss the results
of a systematic analysis applied on the whole simulated data, by making use of
prototype science tools widely adopted by the TeV astronomical community.
Furthermore, particular emphasis is also given to some targets used as
benchmarks.
