Development of a prototype Schwarzschild-Couder telescope for the Cherenkov Telescope Array: status and performance

The 9.7m diameter Schwarzschild-Couder (SC) medium-sized telescope is a candidate for the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). It exploits a novel aplanatic two-mirror optical design to provide a large field of view of 8 degrees and improved angular resolution across the whole field of view compared to single-mirror designs. In addition, the reduced plate scale of the camera allows the use of highly integrated photon detectors, such as silicon photomultipliers, improving the sensitivity at low energies. The construction of a prototype Schwarzschild-Couder telescope (pSCT) started in June 2015 at the Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory in Southern Arizona and is nearing completion. In this contribution, we report on the design, implementation, and initial commissioning tests of the pSCT telescope.