Laying the first stone of the prototype of the LST (Large Size Telescope) [NOT TRANSLATED]

2015-10-09 00:00:00

Today, October 9th at five o’clock in the afternoon, the ceremony of the stone laying for the biggest Cherenkov telescope in the northern hemisphere, the prototype of the LST (Large Size Telescope) with a diameter of 23 metres, will take place at the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory (ORM) on the island of La Palma. Takaaki Kajita, newly awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics, will be present at the event.

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The project of the prototype of the LST is led by Masahiro Teshima and the co-leader is Juan Cortina (member of the IFAE Institut de Física d’Altes Energies, Barcelona). Japan, Germany, and Spain are the main contributors to the LST consortium, in which further participants are France, Italy, Brazil, Sweden, India and Croatia. In Spain, the members of the collaboration are the Institut de Física d’Altes Energies (IFAE), the Institut de Ciències de l’Espai (ICE-CSIC-IEEC), the Centro de Investigaciones Medioambientales y Tecnológicas (CIEMAT), the Institut de Ciències del Cosmos (ICC-UB) and the Universidad Complutense de Madrid (High Energy Group, UCM-GAE, and Electronics, UCM-ELEC).

The dimensions of the LST are huge. As well as the large diameter of its mirror (23 metres), the camera which detects the light produced by the gamma rays has a diameter of 3 metres, and is one of the most complicated and rapid cameras in the world. This camera will be assembled and commissioned by the IFAE, with technology developed by all the Spanish groups which take part in the collaboration.

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[NOT TRANSLATED]