Constraints on the Emission of Gamma Rays from M31 with HAWC
HAWC Collaboration, A. Albert, R. Alfaro, C. Alvarez, J. C. Arteaga-Velázquez, K. P. Arunbabu, D. Avila Rojas, H. A. Ayala Solares, E. Belmont-Moreno, S. Y. Ben… 展开作者
HAWC Collaboration, A. Albert, R. Alfaro, C. Alvarez, J. C. Arteaga-Velázquez, K. P. Arunbabu, D. Avila Rojas, H. A. Ayala Solares, E. Belmont-Moreno, S. Y. BenZvi, C. Brisbois, K. S. Caballero-Mora, T. Capistrán, A. Carramiñana, S. Casanova, U. Cotti, J. Cotzomi, S. Coutiño de León, E. De la Fuente, C. de León, S. Dichiara, B. L. Dingus, M. A. DuVernois, K. Engel, C. Espinoza, H. Fleischhack, N. Fraija, A. Galván-Gámez, D. García-Aguilar, J. A. García-González, F. Garfias, M. M. González, J. A. Goodman, J. P. Harding, S. Hernandez, B. Hona, D. Huang, F. Hueyotl-Zahuantitla, P. Hüntemeyer, A. Iriarte, A. Jardin-Blicq, V. Joshi, D. Kieda, W. H. Lee, H. León Vargas, A. L. Longinotti, G. Luis-Raya, K. Malone, S. S. Marinelli, O. Martinez, I. Martinez-Castellanos, J. Martínez-Castro, J. A. Matthews, P. Miranda-Romagnoli, J. A. Morales-Soto, E. Moreno, M. Mostafá, A. Nayerhoda, L. Nellen, M. Newbold, R. Noriega-Papaqui, A. Peisker, E. G. Pérez-Pérez, Z. Ren, C. D. Rho, D. Rosa-González, M. Rosenberg, R. Rubenzahl, H. Salazar, F. Salesa Greus, A. Sandoval, M. Schneider, G. Sinnis, A. J. Smith, R. W. Springer, P. Surajbali, E. Tabachnick, O. Tibolla, K. Tollefson, I. Torres, L. Villaseñor, J. Wood, T. Yapici, A. Zepeda, H. Zhou
Cosmic rays, along with stellar radiation and magnetic fields, are known to make up a significant fraction of the energy density of galaxies such as the Milky Way. When cosmic rays interact in the interstellar medium, they produce gamma-ray emission which provides an important indication of how the cosmic rays propagate. Gamma rays from the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), located 785 kpc away, provide a unique opportunity to study cosmic-ray acceleration and diffusion in a galaxy with a structure and evolution very similar to the Milky Way. Using 33 months of data from the High Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory, we search for TeV gamma rays from the galactic plane of M31. We also investigate past and present evidence of galactic activity in M31 by searching for Fermi Bubble-like structures above and below the galactic nucleus. No significant gamma-ray emission is observed, so we use the null result to compute upper limits on the energy density of cosmic rays $>10$ TeV in M31. The computed upper limits are approximately ten times higher than expected from the extrapolation of the Fermi LAT results.
The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory records the air showers produced by cosmic rays and gamma rays at a rate of about 20 kHz. While the events observed by HAWC are 99.9% hadronic cosmic rays, this background can be strongly suppressed using topological cuts that preferentially select electromagnetic air showers. Using this capability of HAWC, we can create a sample of air showers dominated by gamma rays and cosmic electrons and positrons. HAWC is one of the few operating observatories capable of measuring showers produced by electron and positron primaries above 1 TeV, and can…
The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory, located 4100 m above sea level near Sierra Negra (19$^\circ$ N) in Mexico, is sensitive to gamma rays and cosmic rays at TeV energies. The arrival direction distribution of cosmic rays at these energies shows significant anisotropy on several angular scales, with a relative intensity ranging between 10$^{-3}$ and 10$^{-4}$. We present the results of a study of cosmic-ray anisotropy based on more than 86 billion cosmic-ray air showers recorded with HAWC since June 2013. The HAWC cosmic-ray sky map, which has a median energy of 2 TeV, exhibit…
The HAWC observatory is an air-shower detector, which is designed to study both astrophysical gamma-rays in the TeV region and galactic cosmic rays in the energy interval from 1 TeV to 1 PeV. This energy regime is quite interesting for cosmic ray research, since indirect observations overlap with direct measurements, which offers the opportunity for cross calibration and studies of experimental systematic errors in both techniques. One quantity that could help for this purpose is the all-particle energy spectrum of cosmic rays. In this work, we present an update of HAWC measurements on the tot…
Astrophysical scenarios provide a unique opportunity to test the possible signatures of Lorentz Invariance Violation (LIV) due to the high energies and the very long distances they involve. An isotropic correction to the photon dispersion relation, by hypothetical Lorentz invariance violation, has a consequence that photons of sufficient energy are unstable and decay very fast. The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory is sensitive to gamma-rays in the 100 GeV to 100 TeV energy range, making it a very useful tool to study LIV. In this work we present potential stringent limits for t…
The Milky Way contains hundreds of binary systems which are known to emit in radio and X-rays, but only a handful of binaries have been observed to produce very high-energy gamma rays. In addition, the emission mechanisms which produce the gamma rays in the few known sources are not well understood. To improve the statistics of binary sources in the TeV band, the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Gamma-ray Observatory, or HAWC, has begun to carry out a simultaneous survey of TeV binary candidates in the Northern Hemisphere between 100 GeV and 100 TeV. HAWC is a surface array that records air showe…
Geminga is a radio-quiet pulsar ~250 parsecs from Earth that was first discovered as a GeV gamma-ray source and then identified as a pulsar. Milagro observed an extended TeV source spatially consistent with Geminga. HAWC observes a similarly extended source. Observations of Geminga's flux and extension will be presented.
Cosmic rays in the inner solar system are subject to deflection by both the geomagnetic and interplanetary magnetic fields, and simultaneously interact with the Sun's photosphere resulting in the production of gamma rays. This phenomenon can be studied by observing the deficit ("shadow") in the cosmic ray flux from the direction of the Sun and searching for an excess photon signal above the isotropic background. The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory in Mexico has been taking data on the solar disk at TeV energies since the end of 2014. We present our first efforts to estimate th…
The cosmic-ray flux in the Galaxy can be characterized by combining the knowledge of the distribution of gas in the Galaxy and the observation of gamma rays. We analyze the data from the HAWC Observatory to look for gamma rays in three galactic giant molecular clouds, that are outside the galactic plane ($|b|>5^{\circ}$). We can then test the paradigm that the measured local cosmic-ray flux is the same as the "sea" of Galactic cosmic rays. Due to its large field of view, and high duty cycle, HAWC is suitable to search for gamma rays from large structures in the TeV gamma-ray regime. We present…
The Diffuse Gamma-Ray Background (DGB) above 100 GeV at high-latitudes is expected to be produced by unresolved extragalactic objects such as active galactic nuclei, isotropic Galactic gamma-rays, and possible emission from dark matter annihilations or decays in the Galactic dark matter halo. The DGB has been observed up to nearly 1 TeV, but has yet to be detected at higher energies. Detections or stringent limits on the DGB above this energy would have strong multimessenger consequences, such as constraining the origin of astrophysical neutrinos observed in IceCube. The High Altitude Water Ch…
Galactic diffuse TeV gamma-ray emission is produced by the interaction of high-energy cosmic-ray particles with matter and radiation in our Galaxy. The measurement of Galactic diffuse TeV gamma-ray emission would provide strong constraints on the acceleration and propagation of Galactic cosmic rays. The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory, located in central Mexico at 4100 m above sea level, is sensitive to gamma rays between a few hundreds GeV and about 100 TeV. Thanks to its large field of view of 2 steradians and excellent background estimation, HAWC has a unique capability to …
We present a measurement of the energy spectrum of the light mass group of cosmic rays (protons and helium) with the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory in the energy interval from $10$ TeV to $200$ TeV. The spectrum covers the energy range between direct and indirect measurements, where precision data on the composition of cosmic rays are needed. The spectrum was constructed by applying an unfolding technique on a proton plus helium enriched sub-sample ($>90\%$ abundance) of cosmic ray air showers selected from the HAWC cosmic-ray data. The subset contains $3.8 \times 10^{9}$ air…
The HAWC gamma ray observatory is located at the Sierra Negra Volcano in Puebla, Mexico, at an altitude of 4,100 meters. HAWC is a wide field of view array of 300 water Cherenkov detectors that are continuously surveying ~ 2sr of the sky, operating since March 2015. The large collected data sample allows HAWC to perform an unbiased monitoring of the BL Lac Mrk 421. This is the closest and brightest known extragalactic high-synchrotron-peaked BL Lac in the gamma-ray/X- ray bands and is extensively monitored by the Large Area Telescope (LAT) on-board the Fermi satellite, and the BAT and XRT inst…
M87 is a giant radio galaxy located in the Virgo Cluster, known to be a very high energy (VHE) gamma-ray source. As radio galaxies are considered the misaligned low-redshift counterparts of blazars, they are excellent laboratories for testing AGN emission models. M87 has been detected and monitored by Fermi-LAT and several atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes. Recently, the HAWC Collaboration presented marginal evidence of 4.5 year TeV gamma-ray emission from this object. The HAWC data has the potential to constrain the average VHE emission of sources of complex behavior, like M87, for which the p…
The HAWC Gamma-Ray Observatory has reported the discovery of TeV gamma-ray emission extending several degrees around the positions of Geminga and B0656+14 pulsars. Assuming these gamma rays are produced by inverse Compton scattering off low-energy photons in electron halos around the pulsars, we determine the diffusion of electrons and positrons in the local interstellar medium. We will present the morphological and spectral studies of these two VHE gamma-ray sources and the derived positron spectrum at Earth.
We present a search in IceCube data for neutrino emission from Galactic TeV gamma-ray sources detected by the HAWC gamma-ray observatory. HAWC serves as the excellent instrument to complement IceCube with its energy range extending to very high energies. Assuming that the highest energy photons originate from the decay of pions, rather than from accelerated leptons, the very high energy gamma-rays observed by HAWC are expected to be correlated with neutrinos. Using eight years of IceCube data, we report on two analyses that investigate a possible neutrino--gamma ray correlation. The first is a…
The HAWC gamma-ray observatory is a wide field of view and high duty cycle $γ$-ray detector investigating the 0.1 - 100 TeV energy range. It has detected supermassive black holes in the near Universe, and is seeking to detect black hole related objects like gamma-ray bursts, Galactic binary systems, primordial black holes and gravitational wave mergers. Daily light curves of the BL Lac objects Mrk 421 and Mrk 501 are presented here, together with a compilation of studies of black hole related objects.
The H.E.S.S. collaboration recently published its Galactic Plane Survey, which is a deep survey of half of the Milky Way in TeV gamma-rays, using almost 10 years of observations. It contains 78 sources, including 16 new sources. On the other hand, the HAWC collaboration also published its 2HWC catalogue based on 507 days of data. It is the result of the first source search performed with the complete HAWC detector, covering two thirds of the sky. In this search, 39 sources have been reported, amongst them 16 detected for the first time at TeV energies. The HAWC data set doubled since then, rev…
Detections of very-high-energy (VHE; > 100 GeV) photons from Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) can provide fundamental information on the involved radiative processes, physical composition of the ejecta and acceleration processes. The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) gamma-ray observatory is the best gamma-ray instrument to study transient phenomena over a long period of time from 100 GeV to 100 TeV. Its large field of view and duty cycle (> 95%) allow it to search blindly for sources of GRBs and to follow up on external alerts from satellite instruments, such as Fermi and Swift, searching for their…
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory is a TeV gamma-ray detector, completed in early 2015. HAWC started science operations in August 2013 with a third of the detector taking data. Several known gamma-ray sources have already been detected with the first HAWC data. Among these sources, the Crab Nebula, the brightest steady gamma-ray source at very high energies in our Galaxy, has been detected with high significance. In this contribution I will present the results of the observations of the Crab Nebula with HAWC, including time variability, and the detector performance based on …
We present the first catalogs of the highest-energy (above 56 TeV and 100 TeV) gamma-ray sources seen by the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory. The wide field-of-view of HAWC naturally lends itself to unbiased all-sky surveys and newly developed event-by-event gamma-ray energy reconstruction algorithms have allowed unprecedented energy resolution. The sources presented here are the highest-energy sources ever detected. All are coincident with known lower-energy gamma-ray sources within our Galaxy. These objects may have implications for the sources of Galactic cosmic rays; since…
The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory, or HAWC, is carrying out an unbiased survey of cosmic rays and gamma rays from the Northern Hemisphere between 100 GeV and 100 TeV. HAWC is currently the only high-uptime wide-field TeV observatory in operation, and has a robust program to search for flares and other transient sources of gamma rays. The detector is also well suited to observe spatially extended regions of gamma-ray emission and cosmic-ray anisotropy. HAWC recently concluded its first year of data taking with the complete detector. The results include not only observations of many …
The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory (HAWC) is a large field of view (~2 sr) continuously operating experiment sensitive to very-high energy (VHE) gamma rays (~0.3-100 TeV). These characteristics make it well suited for observing or constraining the VHE emission of rapid transients such as some gravitational waves progenitors. Of special interest are the events at low redshift where the attenuation due to the extragalactic background light is minimal. This is the case for binary neutron star mergers in the horizon of the LIGO and Virgo experiments, for which HAWC can either detect or …
Nearby electron/positron accelerators, mostly Pulsar Wind Nebulae (PWNe), have been proposed as potential origins of the positron excess above 10 GeV. The HAWC Observatory reveals two very extended sources spatially coincident with two nearby middle-aged pulsars: Geminga and PSR B0656+14, suggesting ultrarelativistic electrons/positrons accelerated in our backyard. Morphological studies on these two PWNe provide a constraint on the diffusion coefficient at HAWC energies. In this poster, we will present the model development and morphological studies on these PWNe, and the derived diffusion coe…
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory is a ground-based air-shower detector designed to study the TeV gamma and cosmic ray windows. The observatory is composed of a densely packed array of $300$ water Cherenkov tanks, $4.5$ m deep and $7.3$ diameter with $4$ photomultipliers (PMT) each, distributed on a $22,000 \, \mbox{m}^2$ surface. The instrument registers the number of hit PMT's as well as the timing information and the total charge seen by the photomultipliers during the shower event. From the analysis of these data, shower observables such as the arrival direction, the cor…
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory is a ground-based TeV gamma-ray observatory in the state of Puebla, Mexico at an altitude of 4100 m. Its 22,000 m$^2$ instrumented area, wide field of view ($\sim$2 sr), and >95% uptime make it an ideal instrument for discovering gamma-ray burst (GRB) emission at $\sim$100 GeV. Such a discovery would provide key information about the origins of prompt GRB emission as well as constraints on extra-galactic background light (EBL) models and the violation of Lorentz invariance. We will present prospects for discovering GRB emission at $\sim$100 …
The HAWC gamma ray observatory is located at the Sierra Negra Volcano in Puebla, Mexico, at an altitude of 4,100 meters. HAWC is a wide field of view array of 300 water Cherenkov detectors that are continuously surveying 2sr of the sky since March 2015. The large collected data sample consisting in more than 3 years makes HAWC an ideal instrument to perform an unbiased monitoring of blazars in the very-high-energy (VHE) emission. This is particular relevant for Mrk 421, one of the closest and brightest blazars in the gamma-ray/X-ray classified as highsynchrotron-peaked BL Lac class. In this wo…
Data from 105 days from the High Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory (HAWC) have been used to place a new limit on an isotropic diffuse gamma-ray population above 10 TeV. High- energy isotropic diffuse gamma-ray emission is produced by unresolved extragalactic objects such as active galactic nuclei, with potential contributions from interactions of high-energy cosmic rays with the inter-Galactic medium, or dark matter annihilation. Isotropic diffuse gamma-ray emission has been observed up to nearly 1 TeV. Above this energy, only upper limits have been reported. Observations or limits of the i…
The era of multimessenger astrophysics has arrived with the simultaneous operation of large cosmic-ray, gamma-ray, neutrino, and gravitational-wave observatories. In just the past two years, an electromagnetic (EM) counterpart was detected for a gravitational wave event, and evidence for an EM counterpart of high energy neutrinos has been identified. These measurements have had a major impact on our view of the non-thermal universe, but understanding cosmic accelerators require a substantial increase in the number of multimessenger observations. The Astrophysical Multimessenger Observatory Net…
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov Gamma-Ray Observatory has been accumulating a progressively deeper exposure of the TeV sky since its inauguration in March 2015. Located at geographical latitude $+19^\circ$N, HAWC has been able to perform a deep and unbiased survey of two thirds of the sky. We analyzed three years of HAWC data searching for long term persistent emission from a redshift limited ($z\leq 0.3$) sample of active galactic nuclei drawn from the {\it Fermi}-LAT 3FHL catalog. The HAWC dataset confirms the high significance detection of the two nearest BL Lac objects, \mbox{Mrk 421} an…
Resolving the Galactic Center Region's Gamma-Ray Emission and Searching for its Neutrino Counterpart with HAWC and IceCube
Instituto de Física, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México（墨西哥国立自治大学物理研究所）；Universidad de Costa Rica（哥斯达黎加大学）；Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo（米却肯圣尼古拉斯德伊达尔戈大学）；Department of Physics and Astronomy, Michigan State University（密歇根州立大学物理与天文学系）；Temple University（天普大学）；Instituto de Astronomía, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México（墨西哥国立自治大学天文研究所）；Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas（恰帕斯自治大学）；Instituto Nacional de Astrofísica, Óptica y Electrónica（国家天体物理学、光学和电子研究所）；Institute of Nuclear Physics Polish Academy of Sciences（波兰科学院核物理研究所）
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory monitors the gamma-ray sky at energies between 100 GeV and 100 TeV with a wide field of view of $\sim 2$ steradians. A duty cycle of $\sim 90$% allows HAWC to scan two thirds of the sky every day and has resulted in an unprecedented data set of unbiased and evenly sampled daily TeV light curves, collected over more than one year of operation since the completion of the array. These measurements highlight the flaring activity of the blazars Markarian 421 and Markarian 501 and allow us to discuss the frequency of high flux states and correlati…
High-mass microquasars (HMMQs) are powerful particle accelerators, but their mechanism of the high-energy emission is poorly understood. To date, only a handful of these particle engines have ever been observed to emit gamma-ray photons and are thus potential TeV gamma-ray emitters. In this work, we study four HMMQs, namely, LS 5039, Cyg X-1, Cyg X-3, and SS 433 using the data from the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory. We perform time dependent analyses on each HMMQ to look for any periodic variations in their flux. We produce light curves using the HAWC daily maps from which w…
A new ground-based wide-field extensive air shower array known as the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory promises a new window to monitoring the $\sim$100 GeV gamma-ray sky with the potential for detecting a high energy spectral cutoff in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). It represents a roughly 15 times sensitivity gain over the previous generation of wide-field gamma-ray air shower instruments and is able to detect the Crab Nebula at high significance ($>$5 $σ$) with each daily transit. Its wide field-of-view ($\sim$2 sr) and $>$95% uptime make it an ideal instrument for detecting GRB e…
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory (HAWC) has a wide field-of-view (FOV, $\sim$2sr) and a high duty cycle ($\sim$95\%), which make it a powerful survey and monitoring experiment for sources of TeV gamma rays. We present a systematic survey of gamma-ray sources based on the Fermi 3FHL catalog. Sources are restricted to HAWC's FOV (Declination 19$^\circ$ $\pm$ 40$^\circ$) and to extragalactic sources with redshift: 0.001 $<$ z $<$ 0.3. Extragalactic gamma-ray sources are dominated by active galactic nuclei (AGN) and TeV gamma-ray sources are mostly BL Lac-type blazars. The study of AG…
A number of Galactic sources emit GeV-TeV gamma rays that are produced through leptonic and/or hadronic mechanisms. Spectral analysis in this energy range is crucial in order to understand the emission mechanisms. The HAWC Gamma-Ray Observatory, with a large field of view and location at $19^\circ$ N latitude, is surveying the Galactic Plane from high Galactic longitudes down to near the Galactic Center. Data taken with partially-constructed HAWC array in 2013-2014 exhibit TeV gamma-ray emission along the Galactic Plane. A high-level analysis likelihood framework for HAWC, also presented at th…
We report on the search of astrophysical gamma rays with energies in the 100 TeV to several PeV range arriving in directional and temporal coincidence with public alerts from HAWC (TeV gamma rays) and IceCube (neutrinos above ~100 TeV). The observations have been performed with the Carpet-2 air-shower detector at the Baksan Neutrino Observatory, working in the "photon-friendly" mode since 2018. Photon candidate showers are selected by their low muon content. No significant excess of the photon candidates have been observed, and upper limits on gamma-ray fluences associated with the alerts are …
The HAWC observatory recently published their second source catalog with 39 very high energy gamma-ray sources based on 507 days of exposure time. Among these, there were 16 sources that are more than one degree away from any known TeV source. We studied 13 of these 16 sources with VERITAS and \textit{Fermi}-LAT data. VERITAS, an array of four imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes observing gamma rays with energies higher than 85 GeV, can provide a more detailed image of the source with much shorter exposure time and with better angular resolution. With \textit{Fermi}-LAT data, we searched …
The extended jets of the microquasar SS 433 have been observed in optical, radio, X-ray, and recently very-high-energy (VHE) $γ$-rays by HAWC. The detection of HAWC $γ$-rays with energies as great as 25 TeV motivates searches for high-energy $γ$-ray counterparts in the Fermi-LAT data in the 100 MeV--300 GeV band. In this paper, we report on the first-ever joint analysis of Fermi-LAT and HAWC observations to study the spectrum and location of $γ$-ray emission from SS~433. Our analysis finds common emission sites of GeV-to-TeV $γ$-rays inside the eastern and western lobes of SS 433. The total fl…
We describe measurements of GeV and TeV cosmic rays with the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Gamma-Ray Observatory, or HAWC. The measurements include the observation of the shadow of the moon; the observation of small-scale and large-scale angular clustering of the TeV cosmic rays; the prospects for measurement of transient solar events with HAWC; and the observation of Forbush decreases with the HAWC engineering array and HAWC-30.
The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Gamma-Ray Observatory is designed to record air showers produced by cosmic rays and gamma rays between 100 GeV and 100 TeV. Because of its large field of view and high livetime, HAWC is well-suited to measure gamma rays from extended sources, diffuse emission, and transient sources. We describe the sensitivity of HAWC to emission from the extended Cygnus region as well as other types of galactic diffuse emission; searches for flares from gamma-ray bursts and active galactic nuclei; and the first measurement of the Crab Nebula with HAWC-30.
The observation of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) with very-high-energy (VHE) gamma rays can provide understanding of the particle acceleration mechanisms in GRBs, and can also be used to probe the extra-galactic background light and place constraints on Lorentz invariance violation. We present prospects for GRB detection by the ground-based HAWC (High Altitude Water Cherenkov) gamma-ray observatory. We model the VHE spectrum of GRBs by extrapolating observations by Fermi LAT and other observatories to higher energies. Under the assumption that only e-pair production associated with extra-galactic ba…
Supernova remnants (SNRs) have long been hypothesized as the main source of Galactic Cosmic Rays up to PeV energies. Some of them have indeed been shown to accelerate protons to TeV energies and above. But which of them are indeed efficient accelerators of protons and nuclei? And up to which energies can they accelerate these particles? Measurements of non-thermal emission, especially in the X-ray and gamma-ray regimes, are essential to answer these questions. The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, surveying the northern TeV gamma-ray sky, is currently the most sensitive wide fi…
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Gamma-Ray Observatory surveys the very high energy sky in the $\sim300$ to 100 TeV energy range and has detected two high-synchrotron-peaked BL Lacertae objects, Markarian 421 and Markarian 501 in a period of time of 837 days between June 2015 and December 2017. In this work, we present the detailed time-average spectral analysis. Using an extragalactic background light model, we address the difference in the intrinsic spectral properties between the two blazars above 1 TeV, preliminary results show that the intrinsic spectrum of Mrk 421 is better descr…
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory is a wide-field-of-view gamma-ray observatory that is optimized to detect gamma rays between ~300 GeV and several hundred TeV. The HAWC Collaboration recently released their third source catalog (3HWC), which contains 65 sources. One of these sources, the ultra-high-energy gamma-ray source 3HWC J1908+063, may exhibit a hardening of the spectral index at the highest energies (above 56 TeV). At least two populations of particles are needed to satisfactorily explain the highest energy emission. This second component could be leptonic or hadroni…
The detection of the Fermi Bubbles suggests that spiral galaxies such as the Milky Way can undergo active periods. Using gamma-ray observations, we can investigate the possibility that such structures are present in other nearby galaxies. We have analyzed the region around the Andromeda Galaxy (Messier Catalog M31) for signs of bubble-like emission using TeV gamma-ray data recorded by the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory. We fit a model consisting of two 6 kpc bubbles symmetric about and perpendicular to the M31 galactic plane and assume a power-law distribution for the gamma-ray flux…
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are among the most luminous sources in the universe. The nature of their emission at TeV energies is one of the most relevant open issues related to these events. The temporal and spectral features inferred from the early and late emissions usually known as prompt and afterglow, respectively, can be interpreted within the context of the fireball model. The synchrotron self-Compton process is expected during the afterglow phase. We explain how the theoretical SSC light curves can be compared with hypothetical upper limit located at z=0.3. We show the allowed parameter sp…
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) is a wide field-of-view gamma-ray observatory sensitive to gamma-rays in the 300 GeV - 100 TeV energy range, located in Mexico at an altitude of 4,100 m above sea level. The detector consists of 300 Water Cherenkov Detectors with a volume of 200,000 l each, having a footprint of 22,000 $m^2$, a duty cycle of >95% and a field of view (FoV) of 2sr. In this work we present a general data quality inspection of HAWC data for the years between 2014 and 2017 and also for two specific data periods selected on the base that GRB 150416A and GRB 160301A detected b…
In this contribution, the first results of HAWC, searching for VHE gamma-ray emission from gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) reported by $\mathit{Swift}$, are presented. The HAWC gamma-ray observatory is operating in central Mexico at an altitude of 4,100 m above sea level. With an instantaneous field of view of approximately 2 sr and over 95% duty cycle (up time fraction), HAWC is an ideal detector to perform ground-based gamma-ray observations of GRBs. Though optimised for TeV observations, HAWC has significant sensitivity to short transients of energies as small as 50 GeV. The analysis method used fo…
The extragalactic background light (EBL) is all the electromagnetic energy released by resolved and unresolved extragalactic sources since the recombination era. Its intensity and spectral shape provide information about the evolution of galaxies throughout cosmic history. Since direct observations of the EBL are very difficult to perform, the study of the interaction between the low energy EBL photons and high energy photons from distant extragalactic sources becomes relevant to constrain the EBL intensity. The main goal of this study is to investigate the opacity of the EBL to gamma rays by …
We present a systematic study of the TeV gamma-ray spectrum for the sources in the 2HWC HAWC catalog. Three spectrum models are considered in the analysis: simple power law, power law with exponential cut-off and a log-parabola. A comparison of the test statistic of nested models was performed in order to look for the best description. We used gamma-ray sky maps of 17 and 25 months of HAWC data. From the analysis, only three sources of the catalog deviate from simple power law spectrum with high significance. The corresponding parameters are given in each case.
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) gamma-ray observatory is carrying out a detailed survey of the northern sky at TeV energies. 2HWC J2006+341 is a newly discovered source reported by the point source search in the 2HWC HAWC Observatory Gamma Ray Catalog. Using $\sim$1038 days of HAWC data we carried out a detailed analysis of the region revealing extended emission. No emission has been detected by other TeV instruments at the location of 2HWC J2006+341. We also analyzed publicly available data from the \textit{Fermi}-LAT that show for the first time the existence of an extended GeV sour…
An updated analysis of a targeted search for high-energy neutrinos from Markarian 421 and Markarian 501 is reported. They are two of the closest and brightest extragalactic sources in the TeV band. In contrast to other types of active galactic nuclei, BL Lacs are characterized by rapid and large-amplitude flux variability. Such radio-loud active galactic nuclei are candidate sources of the observed high-energy cosmic rays. Because their jet is collimated to our line of sight, the hadronic interactions with the surrounding medium can produce an accompanying neutrino and gamma-ray flux. The rece…
Background showers triggered by hadrons represent over 99.9% of all particles arriving at ground-based gamma-ray observatories. An important stage in the data analysis of these observatories, therefore, is the removal of hadron-triggered showers. Currently, the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) gamma-ray observatory employs an algorithm based on a single cut in two variables, unlike other ground-based gamma-ray observatories (e.g. H.E.S.S., VERITAS), which employ a large number of variables to separate the primary particles. In this work, we explore machine learning techniques (Boosted Deci…
Due to the high energies and long distances involved, astrophysical observations provide a unique opportunity to test possible signatures of Lorentz Invariance Violation (LIV). Superluminal LIV enables the decay of photons at high energy over relatively short distances, giving astrophysical spectra which have a hard cutoff above this energy. The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory is the most sensitive currently-operating gamma-ray observatory in the world above 10 TeV. Together with the recent development of an energy-reconstruction algorithm for HAWC using an artificial neural n…
