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

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Abstract

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.

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Acknowledgements

C.G. Giménez de Castro and J.-P. Raulin acknowledge CNPq (contracts 305203/2016-9 and 312066/2016-3). The research leading to these results has received funding from CAPES grant 88881.310386/2018-01, FAPESP grant 2013/24155-3, and the US Air Force Office for Scientific Research (AFOSR) grant FA9550-16-1-0072.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro de Rádio Astronomia e Astrofísica Mackenzie, Escola de Engenharia, Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, Rua da Consolacão 896, 01302-907, São Paulo, Brazil

    C. Guillermo Giménez de Castro, Jean-Pierre Raulin, Adriana Valio, Guilherme Alaia, Silvia Helena Fernandes, Tiago Giorgetti, Amauri Shossei Kudaka & Fernando Marcelo López

  2. Instituto e Astronomía y Física del Espacio, CONICET-UBA, CC. 67 Suc. 28, 1428, Buenos Aires, Argentina

    C. Guillermo Giménez de Castro

  3. Mackgraphe, Escola de Engenharia, Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, Rua da Consolacão 896, 01302-907, São Paulo, Brazil

    Vinicius Alvarenga

  4. Centro de Componentes Semicondutores e Nanotecnologias, Unicamp, Campinas, Brazil

    Emilio Carlos Bortolucci

  5. Observatorio Astronómico Félix Aguilar, Universidad Nacional de San Juan, San Juan, Argentina

    Carlos Francile

  6. Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Campinas, SP, Brazil

    Rogério Marcon

  7. Observatório Solar Bernard Lyot, Campinas, SP, Brazil

    Rogério Marcon

  8. Instituto de Ciencias Astronómicas, de la Tierra y del Espacio, CONICET-UNSJ, San Juan, Argentina

    Adolfo Marun

  9. Advanced Embedded R&D Lab, São Paulo, Brazil

    Márcio Zaquela

Authors
  1. C. Guillermo Giménez de Castro
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  2. Jean-Pierre Raulin
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  6. Emilio Carlos Bortolucci
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  7. Silvia Helena Fernandes
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  8. Carlos Francile
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  9. Tiago Giorgetti
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  10. Amauri Shossei Kudaka
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  11. Fernando Marcelo López
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  14. Márcio Zaquela
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Correspondence to C. Guillermo Giménez de Castro.

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This article belongs to the Topical Collection:

Towards Future Research on Space Weather Drivers

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Giménez de Castro, C.G., Raulin, JP., Valio, A. et al. HATS: A Ground-Based Telescope to Explore the THz Domain. Sol Phys 295, 56 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-020-01621-3

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