Characterization of silicon photomultipliers for the Cherenkov Telescope Array medium-sized telescopes

Gamma-ray astronomy at the highest energies (E > 30 GeV) is based on imaging few-ns flashes of Cherenkov light from atmospheric particle showers. The field has been dominated by photomultiplier tubes over the past 25 years but the paradigm is swiftly shifting towards the use of silicon photomultipliers (SiPM). The Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA) is an upcoming gamma-ray observatory that will achieve a ten-times improved sensitivity with respect to current generation experiments. We are part of an effort to build a prototype medium-sized Schwarzschild-Couder telescope exploiting SiPM technology for CTA. We report on measurements of more than 1600 SiPM pixels of 6mm×6mm that will compose the prototype camera. For CTA, we aim to build many similar telescopes with more than 11,000 pixels per camera. We consider various competitive SiPM devices and compare their impact on an idealized array of telescopes.