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

RAULIN, JEAN-PIERRE; ALVARENGA, VINICIUS; FRANCILE, CARLOS; LÓPEZ, FERNANDO MARCELO; ZAQUELA, MÁRCIO; VALIO, ADRIANA; BORTOLUCCI, EMILIO CARLOS; GIORGETTI, TIAGO; MARCON, ROGÉRIO; GIMÉNEZ DE CASTRO, C. GUILLERMO; ALAIA, GUILHERME; FERNANDES, SILVIA HELENA; KUDAKA, AMAURI SHOSSEI; MARUN, ADOLFO; RAULIN, JEAN-PIERRE; ALVARENGA, VINICIUS; FRANCILE, CARLOS; LÓPEZ, FERNANDO MARCELO; ZAQUELA, MÁRCIO; VALIO, ADRIANA; BORTOLUCCI, EMILIO CARLOS; GIORGETTI, TIAGO; MARCON, ROGÉRIO; GIMÉNEZ DE CASTRO, C. GUILLERMO; ALAIA, GUILHERME; FERNANDES, SILVIA HELENA; KUDAKA, AMAURI SHOSSEI; MARUN, ADOLFO

SOLAR PHYSICS

SPRINGER

Año: 2020 vol. 295

0038-0938

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.