Events Calendar
Detection of high energy gamma rays with the HAWC observatory
Tuesday February 14, 2017
| 2:00 pm
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Presenter: | Zhixiang Ren, UNM |
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| Series: | Nuclear, Particle, Astroparticle and Cosmology (NUPAC) Seminars | |
| Abstract: |
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov Gamma-Ray Observatory (HAWC) is a gamma ray and cosmic ray (CR) observatory locates on the flank (with 4100m altitude) of the Sierra Negra volcano in Puebla Mexico, which was completed in March 2015 with the support of the National Science Foundation and Department of Energy in the USA and Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia in Mexico. HAWC is an international collaboration between more than thirty institutions in Mexico, the US and Europe.
HAWC is a continuously operated, wide field-of-view (~2sr) observatory sensitive to 100 GeV to 100 TeV gamma rays and cosmic rays and >90% duty cycle. HAWC uses 300 larger water tanks, each of which contains 4 photo-multiplier tubes (PMT), to detect air shower particles which are produced by high energy gamma rays and cosmic rays striking the atmosphere. Those particles will produce blue light (water Cherenkov light) while traveling through the water tanks, which then collected by the PMTs. HAWC is well suited to observe a variety of transient and extended sources, including diffuse emission from the galactic plane, supernova remnants (SNR), active galactic nuclei (AGN), gamma ray bursts (GRB) and so on. |
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| Location: | PAIS-2540, PAIS | |
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