TY - JOUR
T1 - The optics and camera system of the Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope and the performance improvement to CTA
AU - CTA SCT Project
AU - Acharyya, A.
AU - Adams, C. B.
AU - Ambrosi, G.
AU - Aramo, C.
AU - Benbow, W.
AU - Bertucci, B.
AU - Bissaldi, E.
AU - Buckley, J. H.
AU - Capasso, M.
AU - Cerasole, D.
AU - Curtis-Ginsberg, Z.
AU - De Lucia, M.
AU - Feng, Q.
AU - Fiandrini, E.
AU - Furniss, A.
AU - Godoy, M. Escobar
AU - Giglietto, N.
AU - Giordano, F.
AU - Halliday, R.
AU - Hanlon, W.
AU - Hervet, O.
AU - Hoang, J.
AU - Holder, J.
AU - Jin, W.
AU - Kieda, D.
AU - La Palombara, N.
AU - Leonora, E.
AU - Loporchio, S.
AU - Maier, G.
AU - Marsella, G.
AU - Meagher, K.
AU - Mukherjee, R.
AU - Otte, N.
AU - Paoletti, R.
AU - Pareschi, G.
AU - Randazzo, N.
AU - Ribeiro, D.
AU - Riitano, L.
AU - Roache, E.
AU - Saha, L.
AU - Santander, M.
AU - Shang, R.
AU - Tovmassian, G.
AU - Tripodo, G.
AU - Vassiliev, V. V.
AU - Di Venere, L.
AU - Watson, J. J.
AU - Williams, D. A.
AU - Yu, P.
AU - Zink, A.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© Copyright owned by the author(s) under the terms of the Creative Commons.
PY - 2024/9/27
Y1 - 2024/9/27
N2 - The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the major next-generation ground-based observatory for studying the very-high-energy non-thermal Universe through gamma rays. The observatory will operate across a wide energy range from 30 GeV up to greater than 300 TeV with two observation sites in both hemispheres consisting of a variety of Large-, Medium-, and Small-sized Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACT). The innovative Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (SCT) is a candidate design and a proposed major U.S. contribution of a total of 11 Medium-sized, 9.7m aperture telescopes for CTA southern site. Based on the experience of the current generation IACT observatories, the SCT represents the perfection of IACT technology, being designed to simultaneously achieve a wide field of view and high imaging resolution by implementing novel, aspheric dual-mirror optic, and compact silicon photomultiplier detectors. The addition of 11 SCTs to CTA south will advance the science capabilities of CTA particularly for conducting sky surveys, resolving source confusions in populated regions, detecting multi-messenger transients with poorly known initial localization in follow-up observations, and delineating the morphology of gamma-ray sources with large angular extent. This presentation provides an overview of the SCT optical system and the measurement of the optical performance. A simulation study, including the ability to resolve source confusion and extended source morphology measurement, to demonstrate the expected science performance improvement of CTA with SCTs is also presented. This study is based on CTA Prod3b simulations with an SCT model dating back to 2016. The results will be updated with a new analysis chain that includes the forthcoming updated SCT model from Prod6 simulations. Furthermore, the event reconstruction used for this analysis is a straightforward extension of the analysis that was optimized for telescopes with larger pixels and coarser image resolution. Continuing improvements in the simulation model and analysis approach might present significant future changes.
AB - The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the major next-generation ground-based observatory for studying the very-high-energy non-thermal Universe through gamma rays. The observatory will operate across a wide energy range from 30 GeV up to greater than 300 TeV with two observation sites in both hemispheres consisting of a variety of Large-, Medium-, and Small-sized Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACT). The innovative Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (SCT) is a candidate design and a proposed major U.S. contribution of a total of 11 Medium-sized, 9.7m aperture telescopes for CTA southern site. Based on the experience of the current generation IACT observatories, the SCT represents the perfection of IACT technology, being designed to simultaneously achieve a wide field of view and high imaging resolution by implementing novel, aspheric dual-mirror optic, and compact silicon photomultiplier detectors. The addition of 11 SCTs to CTA south will advance the science capabilities of CTA particularly for conducting sky surveys, resolving source confusions in populated regions, detecting multi-messenger transients with poorly known initial localization in follow-up observations, and delineating the morphology of gamma-ray sources with large angular extent. This presentation provides an overview of the SCT optical system and the measurement of the optical performance. A simulation study, including the ability to resolve source confusion and extended source morphology measurement, to demonstrate the expected science performance improvement of CTA with SCTs is also presented. This study is based on CTA Prod3b simulations with an SCT model dating back to 2016. The results will be updated with a new analysis chain that includes the forthcoming updated SCT model from Prod6 simulations. Furthermore, the event reconstruction used for this analysis is a straightforward extension of the analysis that was optimized for telescopes with larger pixels and coarser image resolution. Continuing improvements in the simulation model and analysis approach might present significant future changes.
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85212279080
UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85212279080#tab=citedBy
M3 - Conference article
AN - SCOPUS:85212279080
SN - 1824-8039
VL - 444
JO - Proceedings of Science
JF - Proceedings of Science
M1 - 587
T2 - 38th International Cosmic Ray Conference, ICRC 2023
Y2 - 26 July 2023 through 3 August 2023
ER -