The Cherenkov telescope array, an advanced facility for ground based gamma-ray astronomy

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a project of a gamma-ray observatory in the Very High Energy (10 GeV–100 TeV) range. In this paper, the current status of the CTA design study is given. The motivations and expected performances are briefly described. The design options for several subsystems: telescopes, mirrors, front-end instrumentation and electronics are discussed.