Monte Carlo Simulations and Validation of NectarCAM, a Medium Sized Telescope Camera for CTA

the CTA Collaboration

Research output: Contribution to journalConference articlepeer-review

Abstract

The upcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) ground-based gamma-ray observatory will open up our view of the very high energy Universe, offering an improvement in sensitivity of 5-10 times that of previous experiments. NectarCAM is one of the proposed cameras for the Medium-Sized Telescopes (MST) which have been designed to cover the core energy range of CTA, from 100 GeV to 10 TeV. The final camera will be capable of GHz sampling and provide a field of view of 8 degrees with its 265 modules of 7 photomultiplier each (for a total of 1855 pixels). In order to validate the performance of NectarCAM, a partially-equipped prototype has been constructed consisting of only the inner 61-modules. It has so far undergone testing at the integration test-bench facility in CEA Paris-Saclay (France) and on a prototype of the MST structure in Adlershof (Germany). To characterize the performance of the prototype, Monte Carlo simulations were conducted using a detailed model of the 61 module camera in the CORSIKA/sim_telarray framework. This contribution provides an overview of this work including the comparison of trigger and readout performance on test-bench data and trigger and image parameterization performance during on-sky measurements.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number747
JournalProceedings of Science
Volume395
StatePublished - Mar 18 2022
Externally publishedYes
Event37th International Cosmic Ray Conference, ICRC 2021 - Virtual, Berlin, Germany
Duration: Jul 12 2021Jul 23 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
Acknowledgements: We gratefully acknowledge financial support from the agencies and organizations listed here: www.cta-observatory.org/consortium_acknowledgments

Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons.

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