The future of ground-based gamma-ray astronomy

Ground-based gamma-ray astronomy is a young branch of high-energy astrophysics, addressing the highest energies in the electromagnetic spectrum. TeV photons cannot be produced by “ordinary” stars since they require quite extreme conditions, thus they allow the study of extreme astrophysical objects such as supernova remnants, neutron stars, black holes, both stellar and supermassive, as well as the elusive dark matter. To make it possible to go a step further in this exciting field, a world-wide collaboration is building the Cherenkov telescope array, an ambitious global observatory, to which the Italian community is strongly committed. The foreseen contribution of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisca (INAF) will be briefly outlined.