Speaker
Dr
Jean-Laurent Dournaux
(GEPI, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, PSL Research University, Université Paris Diderot)
Description
The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) project aims to build the next generation ground-based Very High Energy instrument. It will be devoted to the observation of gamma rays over a wide band of energy, from 20 GeV to 300 TeV. Two sites are foreseen, one in the northern and the other in the southern hemisphere, allowing the viewing of the whole sky. The southern hemisphere array will consist of three types of telescopes with different mirror areas covering the low, intermediate and high energy domains. The high energy telescopes operate from 5 TeV to 300 TeV and will consist of a large number of Small Size Telescopes (SSTs) with a field-of-view of around 10 degrees. The Gamma-ray Cherenkov Telescope (GCT), a telescope based on a Schwarzschild-Couder dual-mirror optical design is one of the proposed CTA telescope designs for which an end-to-end prototype is currently being built.
The assembly of the GCT started on the French site of the Observatoire de Paris in spring 2015. The camera has been mainly assembled in Leicester and has been integrated in the GCT in fall 2015. The telescope is now fully assembled and operational. Its characteristics as well as its performance in the context of CTA specifications are presented in this contribution.
Primary authors
Dr
Arnim Balzer
(Universiteit van Amsterdam)
Prof.
Hélène Sol
(LUTH, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, PSL Research University, Université Paris Diderot)
Dr
Jean-Laurent Dournaux
(GEPI, Observatoire de Paris, CNRS, PSL Research University, Université Paris Diderot)
Dr
Richard White
(Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik)
Prof.
Tim Greenshaw
(Liverpool University)
