Performance of a small size telescope (SST-1M) camera for gamma-ray astronomy with the Cherenkov Telescope Array

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the performance of the SST-1M telescope camera for gamma-ray astronomy within the CTA, highlighting its design, commissioning results, and operational capabilities under various conditions.

Contribution

It introduces the SST-1M camera technology, details its components, and presents performance results and comparisons with simulations, advancing CTA's gamma-ray detection methods.

Findings

Camera demonstrated effective trigger rates and efficiencies.

Performance aligns well with simulation predictions.

Suitable for high-energy gamma-ray observations.

Abstract

The foreseen implementations of the Small Size Telescopes (SST) in CTA will provide unique insights into the highest energy gamma rays offering fundamental means to discover and under- stand the sources populating the Galaxy and our local neighborhood. Aiming at such a goal, the SST-1M is one of the three different implementations that are being prototyped and tested for CTA. SST-1M is a Davies-Cotton single mirror telescope equipped with a unique camera technology based on SiPMs with demonstrated advantages over classical photomultipliers in terms of duty-cycle. In this contribution, we describe the telescope components, the camera, and the trigger and readout system. The results of the commissioning of the camera using a dedicated test setup are then presented. The performances of the camera first prototype in terms of expected trigger rates and trigger efficiencies for different night-sky background conditions are presented, and the camera response is compared to end-to-end simulations.