The GCT camera for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Brown, A. M.; Abchiche, A.; Allan, Dan; Amans, Jean-Philippe; Armstrong, T. P.; Balzer, A.; Berge, D.; Boisson, C.; Bousquet, J.-J.; Bryan, M.; Buchholtz, G.; Chadwick, P. M.; Costantini, H.; Cotter, Garret; Daniel, M. K.; Franco, Andrea; Frondat, F. De; Dournaux, Jean-Laurent; Dumas, D. J.P.; Fasola, G.; Funk, S.; Gironnet, J.; Graham, J.; Greenshaw, T.; Hervet, O.; Hidaka, N.; Hinton, J. A.; Huet, Jérôme; Jegouzo, I.; Jogler, T.; Kraus, M.; Lapington, J. S.; Laporte, Philippe; Lefaucheur, J.; Markoff, Sera; Melse, T.; Mohrmann, L.; Molyneux, Philippa M.; Nolan, S. J.; Okumura, A.; Osborne, J. P.; Parsons, R. D.; Rosen, S. R.; Ross, D.; Rowell, G.; Sato, Y.; Sayède, Frédéric; Schmoll, J.; Schoorlemmer, H.; Servillat, Mathieu; Sol, H.; Stamatescu, V.; Stéphan, M.; Stuik, Remko; Sykes, J.; Tajima, H.; Thornhill, J.; Tibaldo, L.; Trichard, C.; Vink, Jacco; Watson, Jason; Yamane, N.; Zech, A.; Zink, A.; Zorn, J.

doi:10.1117/12.2231685

Cited by 3 publications

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“…GCT optical system enables indeed to use, for a 4-meter primary diameter and 0.2 degree pixel size, 6×6 mm² pixels which are readily available at modest cost in the form of SiPMs or MAPMs. Details in the architecture, design and performance of these cameras can be found in references [12], [13], [14], [15] . The GCT MAPM camera prototype has been successfully integrated and tested on the telescope by the end of 2015 as seen in section 3.…”

Section: Mechanical Assemblymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Gamma-ray Cherenkov Telescope, an end-to end Schwarzschild-Couder telescope prototype proposed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

et al. 2016

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The GCT (Gamma-ray Cherenkov Telescope) is a dual-mirror prototype of Small-Sized-Telescopes proposed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) and made by an Australian-Dutch-French-German-Indian-Japanese-UK-US consortium. The integration of this end-to-end telescope was achieved in 2015. On-site tests and measurements of the first Cherenkov images on the night sky began on November 2015. This contribution describes the telescope and plans for the pre-production and a large scale production within CTA.

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Section: Mechanical Assemblymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Gamma-ray Cherenkov Telescope, an end-to end Schwarzschild-Couder telescope prototype proposed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

et al. 2016

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“…[19,24,36]) and Silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) (e.g. [32,31,39,8]). These different lightsensors will have different spectral responses.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the prospects of cross-calibrating the Cherenkov Telescope Array with an airborne calibration platform

Brown

2018

Astroparticle Physics

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Recent advances in unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology have made UAVs an attractive possibility as an airborne calibration platform for astronomical facilities. This is especially true for arrays of telescopes spread over a large area such as the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). In this paper, the feasibility of using UAVs to calibrate CTA is investigated. Assuming a UAV at 1km altitude above CTA, operating on astronomically clear nights with stratified, low atmospheric dust content, appropriate thermal protection for the calibration light source and an onboard photodiode to monitor its absolute light intensity, intercalibration of CTA's telescopes of the same size class is found to be achievable with a 6 − 8% uncertainty. For cross-calibration of different telescope size classes, a systematic uncertainty of 8 − 10% is found to be achievable. Importantly, equipping the UAV with a multi-wavelength calibration light source affords us the ability to monitor the wavelength-dependent degradation of CTA telescopes' optical system, allowing us to not only maintain this 6 − 10% uncertainty after the first few years of telescope deployment, but also to accurately account for the effect of multi-wavelength degradation on the cross-calibration of CTA by other techniques, namely with images of air showers and local muons. A UAV-based system thus provides CTA with several independent and complementary methods of cross-calibrating the optical throughput of individual telescopes. Furthermore, housing environmental sensors on the UAV system allows us to not only minimise the systematic uncertainty associated with the atmospheric transmission of the calibration signal, it also allows us to map the dust content above CTA as well as monitor the temperature, humidity and pressure profiles of the first kilometre of atmosphere above CTA with each UAV flight. either single or dual mirror optics configuration, will extend the high-energy reach of CTA, predominantly observing γ-rays with energies from a few TeV up to 100 TeV and beyond. To allow all-sky coverage, the CTA observatory will consist of two arrays, one in each hemisphere. The northern array is intended to contain approximately 20 telescopes (LSTs and MSTs) spread over about 1 km 2 , while the southern array is intended to contain ∼ 100 telescopes (LSTs, MSTs and SSTs) spread over an area of approximately four square kilometres. More than two thirds of the southern array telescopes are foreseen to be SSTs. Furthermore, the enrichment of the southern array is envisaged with the addition of medium-sized dualmirror Schwarzschild-Couder Telescopes (SCTs; [9]), which have the advantage of a better angular resolution, smaller point spread function and a larger field of view compared to the traditional single-mirror Cherenkov telescopes.CTA will herald a new era for ground-based γ-ray astronomy, with the emphasis shifting from source discovery, to population studies and precision measurements. This change in emphasis requires a reduction in the systematic uncertainties of the ob...

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Cherenkov Telescope Array Status Report

Mangano¹

2017

Preprint

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The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will be the next generation of ground based gammaray telescopes allowing us to study very high energy phenomena in the Universe. CTA aims to gain about a factor of ten in sensitivity compared to current experiments, extending the accessible gamma-ray energy range from a few tens of GeV to some hundreds of TeV. This increased gamma-ray source sensitivity, as well as the expected enhanced energy and spatial resolution, will allow exciting new insights in some key science topics. Additionally, CTA will provide a full sky-coverage by featuring the array located in two sites in the Northern and Southern hemispheres. This paper will describe the status of CTA and highlight some of CTA's key science themes; namely the origin of relativistic cosmic particles, the study of cosmological effects on gamma-ray propagation and the search for annihilating dark matter particles.

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The GCT camera for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

Cited by 3 publications

References 4 publications

The Gamma-ray Cherenkov Telescope, an end-to end Schwarzschild-Couder telescope prototype proposed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

The Gamma-ray Cherenkov Telescope, an end-to end Schwarzschild-Couder telescope prototype proposed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array

On the prospects of cross-calibrating the Cherenkov Telescope Array with an airborne calibration platform

Cherenkov Telescope Array Status Report

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