A 15 deg Wide Field of View Imaging Air Cherenkov Telescope

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel wide field of view imaging air Cherenkov telescope with a 15-degree FoV, offering improved resolution and reduced distortion for gamma-ray astronomy, enabling more efficient sky surveys.

Contribution

The paper presents a new telescope design with a 15-degree wide FoV and optimized optical features, expanding capabilities beyond traditional prime focus telescopes.

Findings

Achieves a 15-degree wide FoV with high resolution

Provides low isochronous distortion across the entire FoV

Enables more efficient all-sky gamma-ray surveys

Abstract

Contemporary imaging air Cherenkov telescopes (IACT) for ground-based very high energy (VHE) gamma ray astronomy have prime focus optical design. Typically these telescopes have a 2-4 deg wide field of view (FoV). They use f/0.7-f/1.2 optics and provide 3-10 arcmin resolution in the FoV. Generally, a well designed telescope that includes more than one optical element will offer some advantages not available in prime focus designs, such as a wider FoV, a more compact size, a higher and more homogeneous resolution and a lower degree of isochronous distortion of light rays focused onto the focal plane. Also, they allow monitoring the gamma ray activity in a sizeable portion of the sky in a single observation. This would allow one to perform a sensitive all-sky survey in a relative short time. We present an f/0.8 15 deg wide FoV telescope design, which provides a high and near uniform resolution and low isochronous distortion across the entire FoV.