Overview of Ground-based Wide-Angle Cameras array

Liping Xin; Lei Huang; Hongbo Cai; Xuhui Han; Yang Xu; Xiaomeng Lu; Huali Li; Jing Wang; Yulei Qiu; Chao Wu; Ruosong Zhang; Pinpin Zhang; Yujie Xiao; Guangwei Li; Jingsong Deng; Dawei Xu; Linjun Wang; Jinran Xu; Yinuo Ma; Yangtong Zheng; Wenlong Dong; Zhuheng Yao; Enwei Liang; Xianggao Wang; Xiangyu Wang; Zigao Dai; Yuangui Yang; Jianyan Wei

arXiv · 2604.24260

Overview of Ground-based Wide-Angle Cameras array

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Abstract

As one of the key ground-based facilities of the Chinese-French SVOM mission, the main scientific objectives of the Ground-based Wide Angle Camera array (GWAC) are to detect prompt optical emission of gamma-ray bursts or other short duration astronomical transients on a second-scale temporal resolution. GWAC is located at Xinglong observatory, China, and consists of 10 mounts and 40 cameras, providing a joint field of view of about 3600 square degrees.The detection ability is 16 magnitude in 10 seconds of exposure time in the visual band under the condition of the new moon phase. Here, we give an overview of GWAC and introduce the science motivation of the project, as well as the performance of the hardware and the software. The observation strategies and the data processing are briefly presented. The early sciences in the last 5 years since the first light are summarized.

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Liping Xin, Lei Huang, Hongbo Cai, Xuhui Han, Yang Xu, Xiaomeng Lu, Huali Li, Jing Wang, Yulei Qiu, Chao Wu, Ruosong Zhang, Pinpin Zhang, Yujie Xiao, Guangwei Li, Jingsong Deng, Dawei Xu, Linjun Wang, Jinran Xu, Yinuo Ma, Yangtong Zheng, Wenlong Dong, Zhuheng Yao, Enwei Liang, Xianggao Wang, Xiangyu Wang, Zigao Dai, Yuangui Yang, Jianyan Wei. 2026-04-27. Overview of Ground-based Wide-Angle Cameras array. https://arxiv.org/abs/2604.24260

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