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Abstract

The central 300 parsecs of our Galaxy contain the richest population of potential very high energy (VHE) γ-ray sources of any part of the sky. The wide field of view of H.E.S.S. [1] (5⁰) allows us to observe all of these candidate sources with a single pointing of the instrument. In addition to the known γ-ray sources G 0.9+0.1 [2] and HESS J1745-290 (close to Sgr A^*) [3, 4, 5], the region contains several shell-type SNR, at least one additional pulsar wind nebula (the `Mouse', G359.23-0.82) and two unidenti ed EGRET sources. In addition to these potential 'active' particle accelerators, the Galactic Centre (GC) region provides probably the best target for the detection of VHE γ-rays from 'passive' cosmic ray targets [6]. The dense and massive molecular clouds of the region, Sgr A, B and C, provide efficient targets for diffuse cosmic rays, leading to γ-ray production via the decay of neutral pions. At lower energies the EGRET instrument detected strong diffuse emission from the GC region [7]. However, the presence of two strong sources in the region and the rather poor angular resolution of EGRET, prevented the determination of the density of ~GeV cosmic rays in this region. With the order of magnitude better angular resolution of H.E.S.S. the giant molecular clouds of the region are individually resolvable.