Detection of the Crab Nebula by the prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope
Abstract
The Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (SCT) is a medium-sized telescope technology proposed for the Cherenkov Telescope Array. It uses a novel dual-mirror optical design that removes comatic aberrations across its entire field of view. The SCT camera employs high-resolution silicon photomultiplier (SiPM) sensors with a pixel size of 4 arcminutes. A prototype SCT (pSCT) has been constructed at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Arizona, USA. An observing campaign in 2020, with a partial camera of 1600 pixels (2.7 degrees by 2.7 degrees field of view) resulted in detection of the Crab Nebula at 8.6 sigma statistical significance. Work on the pSCT camera and optical system is ongoing to improve performance and prepare for an upcoming camera upgrade. The pSCT camera upgrade will replace the current camera modules with improved SiPMs and readout electronics and will expand the camera to its full design field of view of 8 degrees in diameter (11,328 pixels). The fully upgraded pSCT will enable next-generation very-high-energy gamma-ray astrophysics through excellent background rejection and angular resolution. In this presentation we describe first results from the successful operation of the pSCT and future plans.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2109.06225,
title = {Detection of the Crab Nebula by the prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope},
author = {C. B. Adams and G. Ambrosi and M. Ambrosio and C. Aramo and P. I. Batista and W. Benbow and B. Bertucci and E. Bissaldi and M. Bitossi and A. Boiano and C. Bonavolontà and R. Bose and A. Brill and A. M. Brown and J. H. Buckley and R. A. Cameron and R. Canestrari and M. Capasso and M. Caprai and C. E. Covault and D. Depaoli and L. Di Venere and M. Errando and S. Fegan and Q. Feng and E. Fiandrini and A. Furniss and A. Gent and N. Giglietto and F. Giordano and E. Giro and R. Halliday and O. Hervet and J. Holder and T. B. Humensky and S. Incardona and M. Ionica and W. Jin and D. Kieda and F. Licciulli and S. Loporchio and G. Marsella and V. Masone and K. Meagher and T. Meures and B. A. W. Mode and S. A. I. Mognet and R. Mukherjee and A. Okumura and N. Otte and F. R. Pantaleo and R. Paoletti and G. Pareschi and F. Di Pierro and E. Pueschel and D. Ribeiro and L. Riitano and E. Roache and J. Rousselle and A. Rugliancich and M. Santander and R. Shang and L. Stiaccini and H. Tajima and L. P. Taylor and L. Tosti and G. Tovmassian and G. Tripodo and V. Vagelli and M. Valentino and J. Vandenbroucke and V. V. Vassiliev and D. A. Williams and A. Zink},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2109.06225},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
9 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables, contribution to ICRC 2021, similar to 10.1016/j.astropartphys.2021.102562 (arXiv:2012.08448)