Séminaires
Miguel Mostafa (Penn. State) : The High Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory (HAWC)
→
Europe/Paris
Amphi Georges Charpak (à confirmer) (LPNHE)
Amphi Georges Charpak (à confirmer)
LPNHE
Description
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) experiment is a large
field of view, continuously operated TeV gamma ray observatory located at 4,100
meters above sea level inside the Pico de Orizaba national park in Mexico. It
consists of an array of 300 water Cherenkov detectors densely-spaced over an area
of 22,000 square meters. The high altitude, the large active area, and the optical
isolation of the PMTs provide better angular and energy resolutions, an improved
background rejection, and an order of magnitude increase in sensitivity with respect
to its predecessor. The improved performance allows us to detect both transient
and steady emissions, to study the Galactic diffuse emission at TeV energies, and
to measure or constrain the TeV spectra of GeV gamma ray sources discovered
with the Fermi satellite. In addition, HAWC is sensitive to prompt emission from
gamma ray bursts above 100 GeV. The HAWC array was inaugurated on March
20, 2015. I will present the preliminary results using data from the first year of the
full array.