ASTRI ("Astrofisica con Specchi a Tecnologia Replicante Italiana") is a flagship project of the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research. Within this framework, INAF is currently developing a wide field of view (9.6 degrees in diameter) end-to-end prototype of the CTA small-size telescope (SST), devoted to the investigation of the energy range from a fraction of TeV up to tens of TeVs, and scheduled to start data acquisition in 2014. For the first time, a dual-mirror Schwarzschild-Couder optical design will be adopted on a Cherenkov telescope, in order to obtain a compact optical configuration. A second challenging, but innovative technical solution consists of a modular focal surface camera based on Silicon photo-multipliers with a logical pixel size of 6.2mm x 6.2mm. Here we describe the current status of the project, the expected performance, and its possible evolution in terms of an SST mini-array. This CTA-SST precursor, composed of a few SSTs and developed in collaboration with CTA international partners, could not only peruse the technological solutions adopted by ASTRI, but also address a few scientific test cases that are discussed in detail.
@article{arxiv.1303.2024,
title = {The ASTRI Project: prototype status and future plans for a Cherenkov dual-mirror small-telescope array},
author = {S. Vercellone and O. Catalano and M. C. Maccarone and F. Di Pierro and P. Vallania and G. Bonnoli and R. Canestrari and G. Pareschi and P. Caraveo and N. La Palombara and M. Fiorini and L. Stringhetti and E. Giro and G. Tosti},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1303.2024},
year = {2019}
}