HAWC: the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.1//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd"> <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en"> <head> <style type="text/css" media="screen"> @import "./css/styles.css"; </style> <title> HAWC: the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory </title> <meta name="google-site-verification" content="LMonhfWlp6ILtxFhrtysEngp0Bh4BfejFGa4JF3Yrbc" /> <link rel="shortcut icon" href="./img/favicon.ico" /> </head> <body> <div class="wrapper">  <div class="header"> <a href="./"> <h1> HAWC </h1> <h2> The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Gamma-Ray Observatory </h2> </a> </div>  <div id="menuwrapper"> <ul id="menu"> <li><a href="./"> Home </a></li> <li><a href="./news/"> News </a></li> <li><a class="dropdown" href="./science/"> Science </a> <ul> <li><a href="./science/cosmicrays.php"> TeV Cosmic Rays </a></li> <li><a href="./science/detection.php"> Detecting Cosmic Rays </a></li> <li><a href="./details/"> Gamma-Ray Astronomy </a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a class="dropdown" href="./observatory/"> Observatory </a> <ul> <li><a href="./observatory/site.php"> Site: Pico de Orizaba </a></li> <li><a href="./observatory/tanks.php"> Water Cherenkov Tanks </a></li> <li><a href="./observatory/layout.php"> HAWC Detector Layout </a></li> <li><a href="./observatory/ghsep.php"> Gamma/Hadron Separation </a></li> <li><a href="./observatory/sensi.php"> HAWC Sensitivity </a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a class="dropdown" href="./details/"> Details </a> <ul> <li><a href="./details/gcr.php"> Galactic Cosmic Rays </a></li> <li><a href="./details/xtreme.php"> High-Energy Accelerators </a></li> <li><a href="./details/ext.php"> Extended TeV Sources </a></li> <li><a href="./details/diffuse.php"> Diffuse Emission </a></li> <li><a href="./details/xgal.php"> Extragalactic Transients </a></li> <li><a href="./details/agn.php"> Active Galactic Nuclei </a></li> <li><a href="./details/grb.php"> Gamma Ray Bursts </a></li> <li><a href="./details/discovery.php"> Discovery Potential </a></li> <li><a href="./details/mma.php"> Multimessenger Astronomy </a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a class="dropdown" href="./publications/"> Publications </a> <ul> <li><a href="./publications/#articles">Journal Articles</a></li> <li><a href="./publications/#atel">Astronomer's Telegrams</a></li> <li><a href="./publications/#thesis">Ph.D. Theses</a></li> <li><a href="./publications/#thesis-master">Master's Degree Theses</a></li> <li><a href="./publications/#thesis-undergrad">Bachelor's Degree Theses</a></li> <li><a href="./publications/#proc">Conference Proceedings</a></li> <li><a href="./publications/#tech">Technical Documents</a></li> </ul> </li> <li><a href="https://data.hawc-observatory.org" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank"> Public data </a></li> <li><a href="./collaboration/"> Collaboration </a></li> <li><a href="./support/"> Support </a></li> <li> <form action="" method="post"> <input type="hidden" name="lang" value="es"> <input type="submit" value="Español"/> </form> </li> </ul> <br class="clearit"/> </div>  <div class="sidebar"> <div id="fb-root"></div> <script>(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v2.6"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script> <div class="sidebox"> <img src="/img/hawc-logo-small.png" style="width:200px;height:132px;border:0px" alt="HAWC"/> </div> <div class="sidebox"> <h3> Quick Links: </h3> <h4>Conacyt Thematic Networks</h4> <ul> <li> <a href="../support/redhawc.php">La Red HAWC</a></li> </ul> <h4> News </h4> <ul> <li> <a href="../publications/">New Papers from HAWC</a></li> <li> <a href="../publications/#proc">Conference Proceedings</a></li> <li> <a href="../news/">Latest News</a> </li> <li> <div class="fb-like" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/hawcobservatory/" data-width="200" data-layout="button" data-action="like" data-show-faces="false" data-share="true"></div></li> <li> <a href="https://twitter.com/HAWC_Obs" class="twitter-follow-button" data-show-count="false">Follow @HAWC_Obs</a></li> <script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script> </ul> <h4> TeV Astronomy </h4> <ul> <li> <a href="http://tevcat.uchicago.edu/">Catalog of TeV Sources</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://tevcat.uchicago.edu/reviews.html">TeV Review Papers</a> </li> </ul> <h4> Milagro Links </h4> <ul> <li> <a href="http://umdgrb.umd.edu/cosmic/milagro.html">Milagro γ-Ray Observatory</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://hawc.pa.msu.edu/milagro_papers/papers.html">Milagro Publications</a> </li> </ul> <h4> For HAWC Collaborators </h4> <ul> <li> <a href="/star-chart">HAWC Star Chart</a> </li> <li> <a href="http://private.hawc-observatory.org/">HAWC Internal Pages</a> </li> </ul> </div>   </div>  <div class="content"> <h3> Latest News </h3> <div id="newsitem"> <a href="news/index.php#hawc_MSP2025"> <img alt="skymapTeVHMSP" src="img/skymapTeVHMSP.png" style="vertical-align:middle;width:530px;height:350px;"> <p> Absence of TeV halos around millisecond pulsars (read more...)</p> <p class="date">February 6, 2025</p> </a> </div> <h3> Public Datasets </h3> <p> <ul> <li> 3HWC Catalog (1523 days): <a href="https://data.hawc-observatory.org/datasets/3hwc-survey/catalog.php">source list</a> and <a href="https://data.hawc-observatory.org/datasets/3hwc-survey/coordinate.php">interactive tool for significance maps and fluxes</a> </li> <li> 17 months <a href="https://data.hawc-observatory.org/datasets/lightcurves-17mo/index.php"> daily light curves of Mrk 421 and Mrk 501</a> </li> <li> Follow-up on <a href="https://data.hawc-observatory.org/datasets/ic170922/index.php">IceCube-170922A neutrino alert</a></li> <li> Gamma-ray counts/background maps and analysis scripts for particular sources: <ul> <li> <a href="https://data.hawc-observatory.org/datasets/crab_data/index.php">Crab Nebula</a></li> <li> <a href="https://data.hawc-observatory.org/datasets/geminga2017/index.php">Geminga and Monogem Halos</a></li> <li> Microquasar <a href="https://data.hawc-observatory.org/datasets/ss433_2018/index.php">SS 433</a></li> </ul> </li> </ul> </p> <h3> About HAWC </h3> <p> HAWC is a facility designed to observe gamma rays and cosmic rays between 100 GeV and 100 TeV. TeV gamma rays are the highest energy photons ever observed — 1 <a href="http://www.lhc-closer.es/taking_a_closer_look_at_lhc/0.energy">TeV</a> is 1 trillion electron volts (eV), about 1 trillion times more energetic than visible light! These photons are born in the most extreme environments in the known universe: supernova explosions, active galactic nuclei, and gamma-ray bursts. </p> <div class="figure" style="width:530px"> <a href="img/hawc_site_201611_hires.jpg"> <img src="img/hawc_site_201611.jpg" style="width:530px;height:293px;" alt="HAWC 300"/> </a> <div class="caption"> The HAWC Observatory (J. Goodman, Nov. 2016). </div> </div> <p> Cosmic rays are charged particles which achieve energies far beyond what we can create in man-made particle accelerators. (The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oh-My-God_particle">highest energy cosmic ray ever observed</a> was 300 million TeV.) The origin of such particles has been a mystery for over 100 years. Gamma rays are though to be correlated with the acceleration sites of charged cosmic rays, so we observe them to help answer this and other cosmic questions. </p> <p> HAWC is located on the flanks of the Sierra Negra volcano near Puebla, Mexico at an altitude of 4100 meters (13,500 feet). The detector has an instantaneous field of view covering 15% of the sky, and during each 24 hour period HAWC observes two-thirds of the sky. Using the HAWC Observatory, we are performing a high-sensitivity <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synoptic">synoptic</a> survey of the gamma rays from the Northern Hemisphere. </p> <h3> Webmaster Contact </h3> <p> Email: <a href="mailto:HAWC-Outreach@umdgrb.umd.edu">HAWC-Outreach@umdgrb.umd.edu</a> </p> </div>  <div class="push"></div> </div>  <div class="footer"> <p style="font-size:90%"> <img src="/img/nsf_logo.png" style="vertical-align:middle; height:35px"> <a href="http://www.hawc-observatory.org/support/"> National Science Foundation (US) </a>  ·  <img src="/img/doe_logo.png" style="vertical-align:middle; height:35px"> <a href="http://www.hawc-observatory.org/support/"> Department of Energy (US) </a>  ·  <img src="/img/CONACYT_logo.png" style="vertical-align:middle; height:35px"> <a href="http://www.hawc-observatory.org/support/"> CONACyT (M茅xico) </a> <br/> <span style="font-weight:bold"> Copyright © 2011-2025, the HAWC Collaboration </span> </p> </div> </body> </html>

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HAWC: the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory