Gamma/hadron discrimination through the analysis of the shower footprint at low energies

Gamma/hadron discrimination in ground-based gamma-ray observatories at the GeV energy range is challenging as traditional muon-based methods become less effective at lower energies. This work explores a novel gamma/hadron discrimination method for Extensive Air Shower arrays that analyzes the shower signal footprint patterns using advanced Vision Transformer (ViT) models. The robustness of this method against noise, including atmospheric muons and low-energy proton showers, demonstrates its potential for application in future gamma-ray observatories.