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Title: Characterisation and testing of CHEC-M—A camera prototype for the small-sized telescopes of the Cherenkov telescope array

Journal Article · · Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. Section A, Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment
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  1. Max Planck Inst. fur Kernphysik, Heidelberg (Germany)
  2. Univ. of Oxford (United Kingdom). Dept. of Physics
  3. Univ. of Oxford (United Kingdom). Dept. of Physics; Durham Univ. (United Kingdom). Dept. of Physics and Centre for Advanced Instrumentation
  4. Univ. of Amsterdam (Netherlands). GRAPPA
  5. Washington Univ., St. Louis, MO (United States). Dept. of Physics
  6. Durham Univ. (United Kingdom). Dept. of Physics and Centre for Advanced Instrumentation
  7. Aix-Marseille Univ., and CNRS/IN2P3, Marseille (France)
  8. PSL Univ., Meudon cedex (France). Observatoire de Paris
  9. Univ. of Liverpool (United Kingdom)
  10. Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics (ECAP), Erlangen (Germany)
  11. Erlangen Centre for Astroparticle Physics (ECAP), Erlangen (Germany); SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Kavli Inst. for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Dept. of Physics
  12. Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Meudon (France)
  13. Univ. of Leicester (United Kingdom). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  14. Univ. of Adelaide, SA (Australia). School of Physical Sciences
  15. Nagoya Univ. (Japan). Inst. for Space–Earth Environmental Research
  16. SLAC National Accelerator Lab., Menlo Park, CA (United States); Stanford Univ., CA (United States). Kavli Inst. for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, Dept. of Physics
  17. Univ. of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations

The Compact High Energy Camera (CHEC) is a camera design for the Small-Sized Telescopes (SSTs; 4 m diameter mirror) of the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). The SSTs are focused on very-high-energy γ-ray detection via atmospheric Cherenkov light detection over a very large area. This implies many individual units and hence cost-effective implementation, as well as shower detection at large impact distance, and hence large field of view (FoV), and efficient image capture in the presence of large time gradients in the shower image detected by the camera. CHEC relies on dual-mirror optics to reduce the plate-scale and make use of 6 x 6 mm2 pixels, leading to a low-cost (~150 k€), compact (0.5 m x 0.5 m), and light (~45 kg) camera with 2048 pixels providing a camera FoV of ~9 degrees. The CHEC electronics are based on custom TARGET (TeV array readout with GSa/s sampling and event trigger) application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs) and field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs) sampling incoming signals at a gigasample per second, with flexible camera-level triggering within a single backplane FPGA. CHEC is designed to observe in the γ-ray energy range of 1–300 TeV, and at impact distances up to 500 m. To accommodate this and provide full flexibility for later data analysis, full waveforms with 96 samples for all 2048 pixels can be read out at rates up to ~900 Hz. The first prototype, CHEC-M, based on multi-anode photomultipliers (MAPMs) as photosensors, was commissioned and characterised in the laboratory and during two measurement campaigns on a telescope structure at the Paris Observatory in Meudon. Here in this paper, the results and conclusions from the laboratory and on-site testing of CHEC-M are presented. They have provided essential input on the system design and on operational and data analysis procedures for a camera of this type. In conclusion, a second full-camera prototype based on Silicon photomultipliers (SiPMs), addressing the drawbacks of CHEC-M identified during the first prototype phase, has already been built and is currently being commissioned and tested in the laboratory.

Research Organization:
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory (SLAC), Menlo Park, CA (United States); Univ. of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS); USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-76SF00515; JP17H04838; JP25610040; JP15H02086; JP23244051; SC0010504
OSTI ID:
1490682
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1597959
Journal Information:
Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research. Section A, Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment, Vol. 904, Issue C; ISSN 0168-9002
Publisher:
ElsevierCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 7 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

References (20)

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journal April 2008
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journal December 2017
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journal February 2017
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46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Gamma-rays
Imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes
Cherenkov telescope array
Full-waveform readout