Título
Sensitivity of the High Altitude Water Cherenkov Detector to Sources of Multi-TeV Gamma Rays
Autor
MAURO JAVIER BONILLA ROSALES
Alberto Carramiñana Alonso
Raquel Díaz Hernández
Manuel Gerardo Corona Galindo
PEDRO AMADO MIRANDA ROMAGNOLI
DANIEL ROSA GONZALEZ
SERGIY SILICH
Ibrahim Daniel Torres Aguilar
Nivel de Acceso
Acceso Abierto
Materias
Resumen o descripción
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory is an array oflarge water Cherenkov detectors sensitive to gamma rays and hadronic cosmicrays in the energy band between 100 GeV and 100 TeV. The observatory willbe used to measure high-energy protons and cosmic rays via detection of theenergetic secondary particles reaching the ground when one of these particlesinteracts in the atmosphere above the detector. HAWC is under constructionat a site 4100 meters above sea level on the northern slope of the volcano SierraNegra, which is located in central Mexico at 19ºN latitude. It is scheduledfor completion in 2014. In this paper we estimate the sensitivity of the HAWCinstrument to point-like and extended sources of gamma rays. The source fluxesare modeled using both unbroken power laws and power laws with exponentialcutoffs. HAWC, in one year, is sensitive to point sources with integral power-lawspectra as low as 5 × 10⁻¹³ cm⁻² sec⁻¹ above 2 TeV (approximately 50mCrab) over 5 sr of the sky. This is a conservative estimate based on simpleevent parameters and is expected to improve as the data analysis techniquesare refined. We discuss known TeV sources and the scientific contributions that HAWC can make to our understanding of particle acceleration in these sources.
Editor
Astroparticle Physics
Fecha de publicación
24 de junio de 2013
Tipo de publicación
Artículo
Versión de la publicación
Versión aceptada
Recurso de información
Formato
application/pdf
Idioma
Inglés
Audiencia
Estudiantes
Investigadores
Público en general
Sugerencia de citación
Abeysekara, A. U., et al., (2013). Sensitivity of the High Altitude Water Cherenkov Detector to Sources of Multi-TeV Gamma Rays, Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 50-52:1-17
Repositorio Orígen
Repositorio Institucional del INAOE
Descargas
149