Final characterisation and design of the Gamma-ray Cherenkov Telescope (GCT) for the Cherenkov telescope array

O.Le Blanc (1) , G. Fasola (1) , J.M. Huet (1) , R. White , A. Dmytriiev (2) , H. Sol (2) , A. Zech (2) , A. Abchiche (3) , J.P. Amans (1) , T.P. Armstrong , M. Barcelo , D. Berge , A.M. Brown , G. Buchholtz (3) , P.M. Chadwick , P. Clark , G. Cotter , L. Dangeon (1) , F.De Frondat (1) , P. Deiml , J.L. Dournaux (1) , C. Duffy , S. Einecke , S. Flis , S. Funk , G. Giavitto , J. Gironnet (3) , J.A. Graham , T. Greenshaw , J.A. Hinton , I. Jégouzo (1) , M. Kraus , J.S. Lapington , P. Laporte (1) , S.A. Leach , S. Lloyd , I.A. Minaya , R. Morier (2) , A. Okumura , H. Prokoph , D. Ross , G. Rowell , C.B. Rulten , H. Schoorlemmer , J. Schmoll , S.T. Spencer , M. Stephan , R. Stuik , H. Tajima , J. Thornhill , L. Tibaldo (4) , J. Vink , J.J. Watson , J. Williams , A. Zink , J. Zorn

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 IRAP - Institut de recherche en astrophysique et planétologie

The Gamma-ray Cherenkov Telescope (GCT) is one of the telescopes proposed for the Small Sized Telescope (SST) section of CTA. Based on a dual-mirror Schwarzschild-Couder design, which allows for more compact telescopes and cameras than the usual single-mirror designs, it will be equipped with a Compact High-Energy Camera (CHEC) based on silicon photomultipliers (SiPM). In 2015, the GCT prototype was the first dual-mirror telescope constructed in the prospect of CTA to record Cherenkov light on the night sky. Further tests and observations have been performed since then. This report describes the current status of the GCT, the results of tests performed to demonstrate its compliance with CTA requirements, and the optimisation of the design for mass production. The GCT collaboration, including teams from Australia, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, plans to install the first telescopes on site in Chile for 2019-2020 as part of the CTA pre-production phase.

Mots clés: Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes; CTA; GCT; Schwarzschild-Couder telescope; Telescope Control System; Aspherical mirrors; SiPM detector; Full-waveform read-out

Domaines: Instrumentations et Détecteurs [physics.ins-det]; Astrophysique [astro-ph]

O.Le Blanc, G. Fasola, J.M. Huet, R. White, A. Dmytriiev, et al.. Final characterisation and design of the Gamma-ray Cherenkov Telescope (GCT) for the Cherenkov telescope array. SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation 2018, Jun 2018, Austin, United States. pp.1070010, ⟨10.1117/12.2313158⟩. ⟨hal-01876039⟩