The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is the major next-generation ground-based observatory for studying the very-high-energy non-thermal Universe through gamma rays. The observatory will operate across a wide energy range from 30 GeV up to greater than 300 TeV with two observation sites in both hemispheres consisting of a variety of Large-, Medium-, and Small-sized Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACT). The innovative Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (SCT) is a candidate design and a proposed major U.S. contribution of a total of 11 Medium-sized, 9m aperture telescopes for CTA southern site. Based on the experience of the current generation IACT observatories, the SCT represents the perfection of IACT technology, being designed to simultaneously achieve a wide field of view and high imaging resolution by implementing novel, aspheric dual-mirror optics, and compact silicon photomultiplier detectors. The addition of 11 SCTs to CTA south will advance the science capabilities of CTA particularly for conducting sky surveys, resolving source confusions in populated regions, detecting multi-messenger transients with poorly known initial localization in follow-up observations, and delineating the morphology of gamma-ray sources with large angular extent. This presentation will provide an overview of the SCT optical system and the measurement of the optical performance. A simulation study, including the ability to resolve source confusion and extended source morphology measurement, to demonstrate the expected science performance improvement of CTA with SCTs will also be presented.
This study is based on CTA Prod3b simulations with an SCT model dating back to 2016. The results will be updated with a new analysis chain that includes the forthcoming updated SCT model from Prod6 simulations.
Furthermore, the event reconstruction used for this analysis is a straightforward extension of the analysis that was optimized for telescopes with larger pixels and coarser image resolution.
Continuing improvements in the simulation model and analysis approach might present significant future changes.