title: Cherenkov Camera and Analysis Development for Highest-Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy creator: Zorn, Justus subject: ddc-500 subject: 500 Natural sciences and mathematics subject: ddc-520 subject: 520 Astronomy and allied sciences subject: ddc-530 subject: 530 Physics description: Imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes are used for the detection of highest-energy γ-rays. This thesis focuses on two experiments equipped with such telescopes: The operating High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) and the future Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). Four of the five H.E.S.S. cameras saw a major electronics upgrade a few years ago enabling improved readout and analysis techniques mainly at the highest energies. The Compact High-Energy Camera (CHEC) is a design for the Small-Sized Telescopes of CTA focusing on the detection of γ-rays with energies exceeding 1 TeV. The first part of the thesis is dedicated to the characterisation of two CHEC prototype cameras developed successively: CHEC-M and CHEC-S. I present results of laboratory and on-telescope measurements for both cameras. In the case of CHEC-S, I focus on those parameters that had been shown to be performance-limiting in CHEC-M and which were therefore addressed in the design iteration for CHEC-S. The second part is devoted to the upgraded H.E.S.S. cameras. I present results of Monte-Carlo simulation studies, analysis developments, and performance measurements using full-waveform readout. In the former case I demonstrate a general consistency between simulations and measurements, in the latter case I show that the use of full-sampled waveform readout improves the performance, especially at the highest energies. In the last part, I present a new analysis of the Galactic γ-ray source HESS J1646–458 which is associated with Westerlund 1, the most massive stellar cluster in our Galaxy. date: 2020 type: Dissertation type: info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis type: NonPeerReviewed format: application/pdf identifier: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserverhttps://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/27614/2/JZ-PhDThesis-university-submitted-version-d2019-11-05.pdf identifier: DOI:10.11588/heidok.00027614 identifier: urn:nbn:de:bsz:16-heidok-276144 identifier: Zorn, Justus (2020) Cherenkov Camera and Analysis Development for Highest-Energy Gamma-Ray Astronomy. [Dissertation] relation: https://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/27614/ rights: info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess rights: http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/volltextserver/help/license_urhg.html language: eng