Prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope for the Cherenkov Telescope Array: Commissioning the Optical System. (arXiv:2110.07463v1 [astro-ph.IM])

Prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope for the Cherenkov Telescope Array: Commissioning the Optical System. (arXiv:2110.07463v1 [astro-ph.IM])
<a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Adams_C/0/1/0/all/0/1">C. B. Adams</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Ambrosi_G/0/1/0/all/0/1">G. Ambrosi</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Ambrosio_M/0/1/0/all/0/1">M. Ambrosio</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Aramo_C/0/1/0/all/0/1">C. Aramo</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Batista_P/0/1/0/all/0/1">P. I. Batista</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Benbow_W/0/1/0/all/0/1">W. Benbow</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Bertucci_B/0/1/0/all/0/1">B. Bertucci</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Bissaldi_E/0/1/0/all/0/1">E. Bissaldi</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Bitossi_M/0/1/0/all/0/1">M. Bitossi</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Boiano_A/0/1/0/all/0/1">A. Boiano</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Bonavolonta_C/0/1/0/all/0/1">C. Bonavolontà</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Bose_R/0/1/0/all/0/1">R. Bose</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Brill_A/0/1/0/all/0/1">A. Brill</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Buckley_J/0/1/0/all/0/1">J. H. Buckley</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Cameron_R/0/1/0/all/0/1">R. A. Cameron</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Canestrari_R/0/1/0/all/0/1">R. Canestrari</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Capasso_M/0/1/0/all/0/1">M. Capasso</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Caprai_M/0/1/0/all/0/1">M. Caprai</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Covault_C/0/1/0/all/0/1">C. E. Covault</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Depaoli_D/0/1/0/all/0/1">D. Depaoli</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Venere_L/0/1/0/all/0/1">L. Di Venere</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Errando_M/0/1/0/all/0/1">M. Errando</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Fegan_S/0/1/0/all/0/1">S. Fegan</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Feng_Q/0/1/0/all/0/1">Q. Feng</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Fiandrini_E/0/1/0/all/0/1">E. Fiandrini</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Furniss_A/0/1/0/all/0/1">A. Furniss</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Gent_A/0/1/0/all/0/1">A. Gent</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Giglietto_N/0/1/0/all/0/1">N. Giglietto</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Giordano_F/0/1/0/all/0/1">F. Giordano</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Giro_E/0/1/0/all/0/1">E. Giro</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Halliday_R/0/1/0/all/0/1">R. Halliday</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Hervet_O/0/1/0/all/0/1">O. Hervet</a>, <a href="http://arxiv.org/find/astro-ph/1/au:+Humensky_T/0/1/0/all/0/1">T. B. 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A prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (pSCT) has been constructed at the
Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory as a candidate for the medium-sized
telescopes of the Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory (CTAO). CTAO is
currently entering early construction phase of the project and once completed
it will vastly improve very high energy gamma-ray detection component in
multi-wavelength and multi-messenger observations due to significantly improved
sensitivity, angular resolution and field of view comparing to the current
generation of the ground-based gamma-ray observatories H.E.S.S., MAGIC and
VERITAS. The pSCT uses a dual aspheric mirror design with a $9.7$ m primary
mirror and $5.4$ m secondary mirror, both of which are segmented. The
Schwarzschild-Couder (SC) optical system (OS) selected for the prototype
telescope achieves wide field of view of $8$ degrees and simultaneously reduces
the focal plane plate scale allowing an unprecedented compact ($0.78$m
diameter) implementation of the high-resolution camera ($6$mm/ $0.067$deg per
imaging pixel with $11,328$ pixels) based on the silicon photo-multipliers
(SiPMs). The OS of the telescope is designed to eliminate spherical and comatic
aberrations and minimize astigmatism to radically improve off-axis imaging and
consequently angular resolution across all the field of view with respect to
the conventional single-mirror telescopes. Fast and high imaging resolution OS
of the pSCT comes with the challenging submillimeter-precision custom alignment
system, which was successfully demonstrated with an on-axis point spread
function (PSF) of $2.9$ arcmin prior to the first-light detection of the Crab
Nebula in 2020. Ongoing and future commissioning activities are reported.

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