Additional Swiss Contributions
Advanced camera
In order to follow up fast transient phenomena, such as gamma-ray bursts, the LSTs need to slew in a few tens of seconds. Though lightweight with respect to its dimensions, the 100 tons of LST weight need quite some power. This fast slew can happen only 1-2 times per night at maximum, so it is not sustainable to dimension the power system to provide this peak power. The system has a maximum power absorbed by the grid of 60 kW, and is equipped with an energy storage system, which is charged slowly over time but can provide 600 kW for fast slewing. The system currently installed in LST-1 has been already built by ABB AG, which was selected among many international companies. A future involvement of ABB Suisse will be explored for the energy storage of the LSTs in the southern array. This activity can establish synergy with a big company, deeply involved in power systems and sustainable energy, which can evolve with new approaches towards a more sustainable scientific observatory for instance by adding solar panels for powering the control system, or using more efficient and eco-sustainable systems.
In addition to these components, R&D work is ongoing on sensors and associated electronics. The addition of the LSTs in the south and the future refurbishment of LST-1 and MAGIC telescopes, also open a new window of opportunities to contribute to advanced technology elements and exploit the expertise developed in Switzerland as pioneers of the SiPM technology in the field of gamma-ray astronomy. A new digital photon counter (DiPC) is being designed and prototypes with CMOS technology by ETHZ and EPFL. Additionally, two state-of-the-art ASICs are being developed by the DPNC and EPFL which will be also further developed in a to-be-proposed EC project for 2024 INFRA-TECH called M2Tech supported by CTAO, MAGIC, ET, Virgo and KM3NeT. In order to exploit best their performance, Swiss companies will take care of the packaging of the circuits individually. At a later stage to reach very low noise levels, the two ASICs will be combined in a single package which will offer a one of kind ASIC which will open a new era for the low-power analog to digital conversion for SiPMs.
Being able to run complex AI inference on hardware accelerators such as GPU, FPGA or ASICs is an extremely active eld of research with a wide range of applications. The algorithms used for the trigger decisions of the future LST cameras will have to deal with very high-input data rates. Not only algorithms will have to be extremely optimised, but also the hardware to run them. Swiss companies will have a critical role to develop this hardware.
The expertise of Swiss partners has also a return in medical diagnostics, with the project led by Prof. Della Volpe to develop a gamma probe for radio-guided surgery nanced by the H2020 ATTRACT Framework.