The ASTRI Mini-Array Science Case

ASTRI is a Flagship Project financed by the Italian Ministry o f Education, University and Research, and led by INAF, the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics. Within this framework, INAF is currently developing an end-to-end prototype of a Small Size Telescope in a dual-mirror configuration (SST-2M) for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), scheduled to start data acquisition in 2014. Although the ASTRI SST-2M prototype is mainly a technological demonstrator, it will p erform scientific observations of the Crab Nebula, Mrk 421 and Mrk 501 at E ≥ 1 TeV. A remarkable improvement in terms of performance could come from the operation, in 2016, of a SST-2M mini-array, composed of a few SST-2M telescopes to be placed at final CTA Southern Site. The SST mini-array will be able to study in great detail relatively bright sources (a few ×10 −12 erg cm −2 s −1 at 10 TeV) with angular resolution of a few arcmin and energy resolution of about 10-15%. Thanks to the stereo approach, it will be possible to verify t he wide field of view (FoV) performance through the detections of very high energy showers with core located at a distance up to 500 m, to compare the mini- array performance with the Monte Carlo expectations by means of deep observations of selected targets, and to perform the first CTA science at the beginning of the mini-arr ay operations. Prominent sources such as extreme blazars (e.g., 1ES 0229+200), nearby well-known BL Lac objects (e.g., MKN 501) and radio-galaxies, galactic pulsar wind nebulae (e.g., Crab Nebula, Vela-X), supernovae remnants (e.g., Vela-junior, RX J1713.7−3946), micro-quasars (e.g., LS 5039), and the Galactic Center can be observed in a previously unexplored energy range, in order to investigate the electron acceleration and cooli ng, relativistic and non relativistic shocks, the search for cosmic-ray (CR) Pevatrons, the study of the CR propagation, and the impact of the extragalactic background light on the spectra of the sources.