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SST Camera – A compact camera for the small-sized CTA telescopes

The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) will host up to 70 Small-Sized Telescopes (SSTs) in the Southern Hemisphere. In a first construction phase of CTA, 37 SSTs will be distributed over several square kilometres and provide sensitivity in an energy range between a few TeV and 300 TeV (teraelectronvolts). These SSTs a will have a dual-mirror optical design with a primary mirror of 4.3 metre in diameter and secondary mirror 1.8 m in diameter, based on the ASTRI-Horn prototype.

MPIK is leading the camera development for use with the dual-mirror SSTs. The camera features a modular design and provides full waveform information for all 2048 pixels with a sampling rate of one giga-sample per second. It is based on the Compact High-Energy Camera (CHEC-S) prototype with silicon photomultipliers, has a mass of under 90 kg, and a size of under 60 cm × 60 cm × 50 cm.

The CTA SST Collaboration includes institutes from Australia, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, and the UK. MPIK is coordinating the project and leading the effort into full camera assembly, integration and verification.