Speaker
David Staszak
Description
VERITAS is an array of four imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes in southern Arizona and is one of the world's most sensitive detectors of very high energy (VHE: >100 GeV) gamma rays and cosmic rays. While the primary focus of VERITAS is to detect and understand gamma-ray sources, techniques can be developed to distinguish and measure individual cosmic-ray species in the data. In this talk we'll survey the status of VERITAS measurements of cosmic rays--including progress towards an all-electron spectrum, prospects for the measurement of the positron fraction, and work towards distinguishing high-Z particle species with a direct Cherenkov technique. We'll also discuss recent VERITAS gamma-ray results that are directly relevant to the propagation of cosmic rays.
