{
  "abstract": "Purpose: Very-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy is an important window to study the extreme astrophysical processes in the universe, and how to effectively distinguish between gamma photons and background signals (mainly protons) is a key technical challenge to realize very-high-energy gamma-ray detection. Spaceborne calorimeters record secondary particle spatial distributions, achieving a background rejection power of 10000-100000 near 1 TeV. Ground-based imaging Cherenkov telescopes measure Cherenkov photon angular distributions, yet they only reach a rejection factor of about 10 in this energy range, leaving substantial room for optimization. Methods: We use CORSIKA and sim_telarray to simulate H.E.S.S. detector responses. Photon emission positions are reconstructed from Cherenkov shower images. Inspired by analysis techniques for space-borne calorimeter, we propose new observables derived from the transverse distribution of Cherenkov photon emission positions to separate gamma-ray signals from proton backgrounds. We employ a likelihood-ratio method to combine single-telescope variables across multiple telescopes and compare its performance with conventional Hillas-based analysis. Results: The results show that observables built from the transverse distribution of Cherenkov photon emission positions are less sensitive to Cherenkov image size and outperform the Hillas width parameter for single-telescope gamma-proton discrimination. Furthermore, the likelihood ratio combining width yields substantially better performance than the conventional mean reduced scaled width: the improvement reaches roughly one order of magnitude near 1 TeV, and this enhancement remains above 50% for energies above 10 TeV.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": "2609.21635",
  "author_total": 2,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Jianling Liu"
    },
    {
      "name": "Hu Liu"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/fj0ckfv8tf88b.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2609.21635",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "fj0ckfv8tf88b",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21635",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "LicenseRef-arXiv-nonexclusive-1.0",
  "licence_label": "arXiv licence",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "astro-ph.HE"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "hep-ex"
    ],
    [
      "openalex",
      "3106|Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7213887398",
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2609.21635",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-18",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/fj0ckfv8tf88b.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:23:03Z",
      "native_id": "2609.21635",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.21635"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "astronomy",
      "origin": "arxiv:astro-ph.HE",
      "subfield": "high-energy-astrophysics"
    },
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "arxiv:hep-ex",
      "subfield": "high-energy"
    }
  ],
  "title": "A method for enhanced gamma-proton discrimination with imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes",
  "title_text": "A method for enhanced gamma-proton discrimination with imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:23:03Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/fj0ckfv8tf88b",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": []
}