HATS: A Ground-Based Telescope to Explore the THz Domain

Gimenez de Castro C.G.; Raulin J.-P.; Valio A.; Alaia G.; Alvarenga V.; Bortolucci E.C.; Fernandes S.H.; Francile C.; Giorgetti T.; Kudaka A.S.; Lopez F.M.; Marcon R.; Marun A.; Zaquela M.

HATS: A Ground-Based Telescope to Explore the THz Domain

Tipo

Artigo

Data de publicação

2020

Periódico

Solar Physics

Citações (Scopus)

4

Autores

Gimenez de Castro C.G.
Raulin J.-P.
Valio A.
Alaia G.
Alvarenga V.
Bortolucci E.C.
Fernandes S.H.
Francile C.
Giorgetti T.
Kudaka A.S.
Lopez F.M.
Marcon R.
Marun A.
Zaquela M.

Resumo

© 2020, Springer Nature B.V.The almost unexplored frequency window from submillimeter to mid-infrared (mid-IR) may bring new clues about the particle acceleration and transport processes and the atmospheric thermal response during solar flares. Because of its technical complexity and the special atmospheric environment needed, observations at these frequencies are very sparse. The High Altitude THz Solar Photometer (HATS) is a full-Sun ground-based telescope designed to observe the continuum from the submillimeter to the mid-IR. It has a 457-mm spherical mirror with the sensor in its primary focus. The sensor is a Golay cell with high sensitivity in a very wide frequency range. The telescope has a polar mount, and a custom-built data acquisition system based on a 32 ksamples per second, 24 bits (72 dB dynamic range), 8 channels analog-to-digital board. Changing only the composition of the low- and band-pass filters in front of the Golay cell, the telescope can be setup to detect very different frequency bands; making the instrument very versatile. In this article we describe the telescope characteristics and its development status. Moreover, we give estimates of the expected fluxes during flares.