AHEAD2020 - Integrated Activities for the High Energy Astrophysics Domain

AHEAD2020 builds on our previous program, funded in H2020 as starting community, that allowed us to qualify now as advanced community. Our overall objective remains to advance further the integration of national efforts in high-energy astrophysics keeping the community at the cutting edge of science and technology and ensuring that observatories are at the state of the art. At the same time, AHEAD2020 aims at widening its horizons to further integrate activities with the newly born multimessenger astronomy, boosted very recently by the discovery of gravitational waves and cosmic neutrinos and of their first high energy counterparts. This will be achieved by a new large community of high energy astronomers, gravitational wave and astroparticle scientists. Along the road paved until recently, we will keep strengthening the theorethical efforts, also building up on the results of the observations of multimessenger sources; and continue opening the best infrastructures for data analysis of high-energy space and ground observatories. Furthermore we will integrate key infrastructures for on-ground test and calibration of spacebased instrumentation and promote their coordinated use. Technological developments will focus on the improvement of selected detector, optics devices and advanced analysis tools for the benefit of future space missions and groundbased multimessenger facilities, with more emphasis on the observation of the new transient Universe.

AHEAD2020 will support the community via grants for collaborative studies, dissemination of results, and promotion of workshops and a strong public outreach package will ensure that the domain is well publicised at both national and international level. AHEAD will also contribute to the benefit of society and to the growth of the European technology market, with specific studies of devices for cultural heritage, material composition and environmental monitoring, as well as the creation of a new generation of researcher.

 This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 871158