Exploration of a 100 TeV gamma-ray northern sky using the Tibet air-shower array combined with an underground water-Cherenkov muon-detector array

Aiming to observe cosmic gamma-rays in the 10–1000 TeV energy region, we propose a 10000 m2 underground water-Cherenkov muon-detector (MD) array that operates in conjunction with the Tibet air-shower (AS) array. Significant improvement is expected in the sensitivity of the Tibet AS array towards celestial gamma-ray signals above 10 TeV by utilizing the fact that gamma-ray-induced air showers contain far fewer muons compared with cosmic-ray-induced ones. We carried out detailed Monte Carlo simulations to assess the attainable sensitivity of the Tibet AS + MD array towards celestial TeV gamma-ray signals. Based on the simulation results, the Tibet AS + MD array will be able to reject 99.99% of background events at 100 TeV, with 83% of gamma-ray events remaining. The sensitivity of the Tibet AS + MD array will be ∼ 20 times better than that of the present Tibet AS array around 20–100 TeV. The Tibet AS + MD array will measure the directions of the celestial TeV gamma-ray sources and the cutoffs of their energy spectra. Furthermore, the Tibet AS + MD array, along with imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes as well as the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and X-ray satellites such as Suzaku and MAXI, will make multiwavelength observations and conduct morphological studies on sources in the quest for evidence of the hadronic nature of the cosmic-ray acceleration mechanism.