Presentation + Paper
23 August 2021 The ASTRI mini-array at the Teide observatory
Salvatore Scuderi
Author Affiliations +
Abstract
The ASTRI Mini-Array (MA) is an INAF project to build and operate an experiment to study astronomical sources emitting gamma-rays at very high-energies. The ASTRI MA consists of a group of nine innovative Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. The array will be installed at the Teide Astronomical Observatory of the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias (IAC) in Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain), on the basis of a host agreement with INAF. Thanks to its expected overall performance, better than current Cherenkov telescopes' arrays for energies above ~5 TeV and up to 100 TeV and beyond, the ASTRI MA will represent an important instrument to perform deep observations of the Galactic and extra-Galactic sky at these extreme photon energies. The design of the telescopes forming the MA is an evolution of the two-mirror end-to-end ASTRI-Horn telescope successfully implemented and tested in the past years at the Serra La Nave Astronomical Station on Mount Etna operated by INAF-Catania. In particular, with the detection of the Crab at energies larger than 3.5 TeV by ASTRI-Horn, it has been proved the validity of the dual-mirror design for Cherenkov telescopes that was never been adopted before. The new MA telescope aplanatic design will implement a larger field of view (more than 10o in diameter) and will be equipped with the updated version of the compact ASTRICAM camera, based on Hamamatsu silicon photomultipliers (SiPM) and on the CITIROC ASIC, specifically developed by the French firm Weeroc in collaboration with INAF for the read-out electronics. In order to simplify the site infrastructure design, reduce operation, maintenance and personnel costs, the ASTRI MA has been designed to be operated in fully automatic mode with remote supervision. In this contribution we describe the functional and physical architecture of the array and the evolution of the design of telescopes and cameras. Finally, the status of the site implementation and of the production of the main ASTRI MA subsystems is reviewed..
Conference Presentation
© (2021) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.
Salvatore Scuderi "The ASTRI mini-array at the Teide observatory", Proc. SPIE 11822, Optics for EUV, X-Ray, and Gamma-Ray Astronomy X, 1182202 (23 August 2021); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2596524
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KEYWORDS
Atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes

Telescopes

Observatories

Control systems

Actuators

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