Operating performance of the gamma-ray Cherenkov telescope: An end-to-end Schwarzschild–Couder telescope prototype for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

J.L. Dournaux (1) , A. de Franco , P. Laporte (1) , R. White , T. Greenshaw , H. Sol (2) , A. Abchiche (3) , D. Allan , J.P. Amans (1) , T.P. Armstrong , A. Balzer , D. Berge , C. Boisson (2) , J.J. Bousquet (1) , A.M. Brown , M. Bryan , G. Buchholtz (3) , P.M. Chadwick , H. Costantini (4) , G. Cotter , M. Daniel , F. de Frondat (1) , D. Dumas (1) , J.P. Ernenwein (4) , G. Fasola (1) , S. Funk , J. Gaudemard (1) , J.A. Graham , J. Gironnet (1, 3) , O. Hervet (2) , N. Hidaka , J.A. Hinton , J.M. Huet (1) , I. Jégouzo (1) , T. Jogler , T. Kawashima , M. Kraus , J.S. Lapington , J. Lefaucheur (2) , S. Markoff , T. Melse (1) , L. Morhrmann , P. Molnyeux , S.J. Nolan , A. Okumura , R.D. Parsons , D. Ross , G. Rowell , Y. Sato , F. Sayède (1) , J. Schmoll , H. Schoorlemmer , M. Servillat (2) , V. Stamatescu , M. Stephan , R. Stuik , J. Sykes , H. Tajima , J. Thornhill , L. Tibaldo , C. Trichard (4) , J. Vink , J. Watson , N. Yamane , A. Zech (2) , A. Zink

1 GEPI - Galaxies, Etoiles, Physique, Instrumentation
2 LUTH (UMR_8102) - Laboratoire Univers et Théories
3 INSU - CNRS - Institut national des sciences de l'Univers
4 CPPM - Centre de Physique des Particules de Marseille

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) consortium aims to build the next-generation ground-based very-high-energy gamma-ray observatory. The array will feature different sizes of telescopes allowing it to cover a wide gamma-ray energy band from about 20 GeV to above 100 TeV. The highest energies, above 5 TeV, will be covered by a large number of Small-Sized Telescopes (SSTs) with a field-of-view of around 9°. The Gamma-ray Cherenkov Telescope (GCT), based on Schwarzschild–Couder dual-mirror optics, is one of the three proposed SST designs. The GCT is described in this contribution and the first images of Cherenkov showers obtained using the telescope and its camera are presented. These were obtained in November 2015 in Meudon, 2 http://www.cta-observatory.org France.

Mots clés: IACT; Cherenkov telescopes; CTA; GCT; Schwarzschild–Couder telescope; Cherenkov detector; Cherenkov Telescope Array; performance; optics: mirror; gamma ray: detector; detector: design

Domaines: Instrumentations et Détecteurs [physics.ins-det]

J.L. Dournaux, A. de Franco, P. Laporte, R. White, T. Greenshaw, et al.. Operating performance of the gamma-ray Cherenkov telescope: An end-to-end Schwarzschild–Couder telescope prototype for the Cherenkov Telescope Array. 14th Vienna Conference on Instrumentation, Feb 2016, Vienna, Austria. pp.355-358, ⟨10.1016/j.nima.2016.05.059⟩. ⟨hal-01554809⟩