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Cherenkov Telescope Array

(CTA, CTAO, Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory)
(ground gamma-ray telescope array in development)

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA, or Cherenkov Telescope Array Observatory, CTAO) is a Cherenkov gamma-ray telescope under construction that will consist of two arrays of ground-based telescopes for observation of gamma rays in the range of 20 GeV to 300 TeV. One array is to be on the Atacama Desert in Chile (99 dishes, near Paranal Observatory) and the other in Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM) in the Canary Islands (19 dishes). Their aim is to spot high-energy gamma-ray photons by observing the Cherenkov radiation they trigger in the upper atmosphere. The method is indirect, but offers a much larger collecting area than is practical with a space mission, which would be necessary to directly detect the photons of interest. The dishes are not all identical, different subsets covering different bands:

LSTLarge-Sized Telescope23-meterlower photon energies
MSTMedium-Sized Telescopesome 11.5-m, some 9.7-mmedium energies
SSTSmall-Sized Telescope4.3-meterhigher energies

Prototype dishes for the various bands are in operation. Some are to be Schwarzschild-Couder Telescopes (SCTs), for which a 9.7-meter prototype (pSCT) has been constructed. An LST prototype, LST1, is in operation at ORM.


(gamma rays,telescope,NRAO,ESO,ground,Canary Islands,Chile,construction,array,distributed)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherenkov_Telescope_Array
https://www.cta-observatory.org/
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2019scta.book.....C/abstract
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023ApJ...956...80A/abstract
https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.07463
https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.12888
WaveLFreqPhoton
Energy
  
4.2×10-21m73×1027Hz300TeVbeginCherenkov Telescope Array
62×10-18m4.9YHz20GeVendCherenkov Telescope Array

Referenced by pages:
Atacama Desert
Cherenkov detector
gamma rays (GR)
High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS)
MAGIC
Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM)

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