Speaker
Description
Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs) have opened a new window on the very-high-energy gamma-ray sky, delivering unprecedented sensitivity at the lowest energies accessible from the ground. While these instruments are primarily designed for astrophysical studies, they also provide a powerful — yet still underutilized — laboratory for fundamental physics.
In this contribution, I will review the current status of such studies with IACTs, including investigations of new physics beyond the Standard Model (dark matter, axion-like particles, Lorentz invariance violation), searches for primordial black holes, as well as constraints on the extragalactic background light, investigations of intergalactic magnetic fields, and studies of cosmic rays using background data from gamma-ray observations. These results highlight the remarkable versatility of IACT data — but also expose an important structural limitation: they largely rely on observations optimized for other scientific goals.
Building on this overview, I will discuss the opportunities and limitations of this approach. While pursuing fundamental physics as an ancillary science case has proven productive, it introduces systematic biases in source selection, observation scheduling, and data analysis strategies that may be limiting our sensitivity in ways that are not always obvious. I will argue that a more deliberate consideration of observation strategies, source selection, and cross-instrument coordination could substantially enhance the reach of current and future facilities — without necessarily compromising their core astrophysical mission.
The field has made impressive progress precisely because IACT data is so rich and versatile. The question worth asking is whether the current approach — effective as it has been — is leaving sensitivity on the table for at least some of these topics, and whether a more deliberate, physics-driven design of observation programmes could open qualitatively new discovery potential for the coming generation of instruments.
