Hamburg 2016 – scientific programme

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T: Fachverband Teilchenphysik

T 65: Gammaastronomie III

T 65.1: Group Report

Tuesday, March 1, 2016, 16:45–17:05, VMP11 HS

FACT - More than Four Years of Reliable Operation with SiPMs in an IACT Camera — •Jens Buss and Fabian Temme for the FACT collaboration — Experimentelle Physik 5b, TU Dortmund, Deutschland

The First G-APD Cherenkov Telescope (FACT) is pioneering the application of solid state photo detectors for imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. Since October 2011, the FACT collaboration has successfully been showing the reliability of silicon photo multipliers (SiPMs) for earth-bound gamma-ray astronomy. Though being situated on the Canary Island of La Palma, FACT is operated remotely from Europe. Due to the robustness of SiPMs, even observations during strong moon light are possible without any need of UV-filters or a reduced voltage. Moreover, no indication for any aging of the used SiPMs has occurred so far. In consequence, this technology allowed to increase FACT's duty cycle beyond that of current generation IACTs, in order to collect a dense data sample from Active Galactic Nuclei. As a result, FACT is an ideal instrument to monitor bright and variable TeV Blazars on the northern sky. A quick-look analysis is reporting flux variations with low latency. Hence, several flare alerts were sent to partners in the Multiwavelength Community. In addition, the Monte Carlo simulations of the system were improved and show a good understanding of the SiPM's properties. The simulations fit the measured data even on proton shower level. The status and lessons learned from the experience of more than four years operation of the First G-APD Cherenkov Telescope will be presented.