| Abstract: | In this paper, the development of the dual mirror Small Size Telescopes (SST)
for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is reviewed. Up to 70 SST, with a
primary mirror diameter of 4 m, will be produced and installed at the CTA
southern site. These will allow investigation of the gamma-ray sky at the
highest energies accessible to CTA, in the range from about 1 TeV to 300 TeV.
The telescope presented in this contribution is characterized by two major
innovations: the use of a dual mirror Schwarzschild-Couder configuration and of
an innovative camera using as sensors either multi-anode photomultipliers
(MAPM) or silicon photomultipliers (SiPM). The reduced plate-scale of the
telescope, achieved with the dual-mirror optics, allows the camera to be
compact (40 cm in diameter), and low-cost. The camera, which has about 2000
pixels of size 6x6 mm^2, covers a field of view of 10{deg}. The dual mirror
telescopes and their cameras are being developed by three consortia, ASTRI
(Astrofisica con Specchi a Tecnologia Replicante Italiana, Italy/INAF), GATE
(Gamma-ray Telescope Elements, France/Paris Observ.) and CHEC (Compact High
Energy Camera, universities in UK, US and Japan) which are merging their
efforts in order to finalize an end-to-end design that will be constructed for
CTA. A number of prototype structures and cameras are being developed in order
to investigate various alternative designs. In this contribution, these designs
are presented, along with the technological solutions under study. |
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