The next generation Cherenkov Telescope Array observatory: CTA

TL;DR

The CTA is a next-generation gamma-ray observatory designed to significantly improve sensitivity across 30 GeV to 100 TeV, utilizing innovative dual-mirror telescopes and a large array to explore high-energy astrophysical phenomena.

Contribution

This paper introduces the innovative optical design and array configuration of CTA's medium and small size telescopes, enhancing performance and reducing camera size.

Findings

Design of dual-mirror telescopes enables reduced camera size and weight.

Array layout covers a large ground area for high-energy detection.

Expected sensitivity improvement by about tenfold over current arrays.

Abstract

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is a large collaborative effort aimed at the design and operation of an observatory dedicated to the VHE gamma-ray astrophysics in the energy range 30 GeV-100 TeV, which will improve by about one order of magnitude the sensitivity with respect to the current major arrays (H.E.S.S., MAGIC, and VERITAS). In order to achieve such improved performance, for both the northern and southern CTA sites, four units of 23m diameter Large Size Telescopes (LSTs) will be deployed close to the centre of the array with telescopes separated by about 100m. A larger number (about 25 units) of 12m Medium Size Telescopes (MSTs, separated by about 150m), will cover a larger area. The southern site will also include up to 24 Schwarzschild-Couder dual-mirror medium-size Telescopes (SCTs) with the primary mirror diameter of 9.5m. Above a few TeV, the Cherenkov light intensity is such that showers can be detected even well outside the light pool by telescopes significantly smaller than the MSTs. To achieve the required sensitivity at high energies, a huge area on the ground needs to be covered by Small Size Telescopes (SSTs) with a FOV of about 10 deg and an angular resolution of about 0.2 deg, making the dual-mirror configuration very effective. The SST sub-array will be composed of 50-70 telescopes with a mirror area of about 5-10 square meters and about 300m spacing, distributed across an area of about 10 square kilometers. We will focus on the innovative solution for the optical design of the medium and small size telescopes based on a dual-mirror configuration. This layout will allow us to reduce the dimension and the weight of the camera at the focal plane of the telescope, to adopt SiPMs as light detectors thanks to the reduced plate-scale, and to have an optimal imaging resolution on a wide FOV.