1. Technical and scientific performance of the prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope for CTA
- Author
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Mirco Caprai, Olivier Hervet, Robert Halliday, Giovanni Pareschi, Qi Feng, Massimo Capasso, Richard G. Bose, Peter Y. Yu, Daniel Nieto, Luca Tosti, L. P. Taylor, Hiroyasu Tajima, Samuel A. Mognet, Maria Ionica, Wystan Benbow, David Kieda, Julien Rousselle, Francesca R. Pantaleo, Corbin Covault, Massimo Valentino, Vincenzo Masone, Leonardo Di Venere, Rodolfo Canestrari, Massimiliano Bitossi, Andrea Rugliancich, Gagik Tovmassian, Jamie Holder, D. Ross, Leonardo Stiaccini, Enrico Giro, Emanuale Fiandrini, Riccardo Paoletti, Pedro I. Batista, Giovanni Ambrosi, Valerio Vagelli, Carla Aramo, Richard White, Simone Incardona, Federico Di Pierro, Anthony M. Brown, Francesco Giordano, Nicola Giglietto, A. Zink, Ruo-Yu Shang, K. Meagher, Jason J. Watson, J. H. Buckley, N. Otte, B. A. W. Mode, Bruna Bertucci, Thomas Meures, Marcos Santander, Michelangelo Ambrosio, Vladimir V. Vassiliev, Luca Riitano, Reshmi Mukherjee, Stephen Fegan, W. Jin, Alfonso Boiano, Colin B. Adams, Akira Okumura, Justin Vanderbrouke, Carmela Bonavolontà, Giovanni Tripodo, Manel Errando, David A. Williams, A. Brill, E. Roache, D. Ribeiro, Giovanni Marsella, Francesco Licciulli, Elisa Pueschel, Elisabetta Bissaldi, Davide Depaoli, Thomas B. Humensky, Amy Furniss, Serena Loporchio, and Alasdair E. Gent
- Subjects
Physics::Instrumentation and Detectors ,Computer science ,business.industry ,Astrophysics::High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,Gamma rays ,Astrophysics::Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics ,Imaging Cherenkov telescopes ,Silicon photomultipliers ,Field of view ,Cherenkov Telescope Array ,law.invention ,Telescope ,Cardinal point ,Upgrade ,Optics ,Silicon photomultiplier ,Crab Nebula ,Observatory ,law ,Schwarzschild-Couder telescope ,Astrophysics::Solar and Stellar Astrophysics ,Aplanatic optical system ,business - Abstract
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the next-generation ground-based observatory for very-high-energy gamma rays. One candidate design for CTA's medium-sized telescopes consists of the Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (SCT), featuring innovative dual-mirror optics. The SCT project has built and is currently operating a 9.7-m prototype SCT (pSCT) at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory (FLWO); such optical design enables the use of a compact camera with state-of-the art silicon photomultiplier detectors. A partially-equipped camera has recently successfully detected the Crab Nebula with a statistical significance of 8.6 standard deviations. A funded upgrade of the pSCT focal plane sensors and electronics is currently ongoing, which will bring the total number of channels from 1600 to 11328 and the telescope field of view from about 2.7° to 8° . In this work, we will describe the technical and scientific performance of the pSCT.
- Published
- 2021