Insights into the Highest-Energy Universe from HAWC
ORAL · Invited
Abstract
The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory provides continuous, wide-field observations of very-high-energy (VHE; ~100 GeV-100 TeV) gamma rays, enabling discoveries across diverse astrophysical environments. Over the past decade of operations, HAWC has produced results spanning from the Sun in our solar system to the Galactic Center, including dark matter searches in dwarf galaxies. We report the first detection of TeV emission from the solar disk, showing an unexpected anticorrelation with solar activity. Additionally, VHE emission from compact binary systems has been revealed, including TeV-resolved jets in the microquasar SS 433 and photons above 200 TeV from V4641 Sgr and LS 5039, demonstrating efficient particle acceleration in these environments. At the Galactic Center, HAWC has detected ultra-high-energy gamma rays exceeding 100 TeV, providing evidence for a proton PeVatron capable of accelerating particles to the highest energies observed in the Milky Way. Finally, HAWC's wide field of view enables sensitive indirect searches for dark matter, setting the strongest constraints to date on annihilation cross sections for particle masses above 100 TeV and improving global limits through joint analyses with other gamma-ray instruments.
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Publication:Performance of the HAWC Observatory and TeV Gamma-Ray Measurements of the Crab Nebula with Improved Extensive Air Shower Reconstruction Algorithms (ApJ, published), Discovery of Gamma Rays from the Quiescent Sun with HAWC (PRL, published), Observation of the Galactic Center PeVatron beyond 100 TeV with HAWC (ApJ Letter, published), Very-high-energy particle acceleration powered by the jets of the microquasar SS 433 (nature, published), Spectral Study of Very-high-energy Gamma Rays from SS 433 with HAWC (ApJ, published), Ultra-high-energy gamma-ray bubble around microquasar V4641 Sgr (nature, published), Orbital Modulation of Gamma Rays up to 100 TeV from LS 5039 (ApJ Letters, published), Combined dark matter search towards dwarf spheroidal galaxies with Fermi-LAT, HAWC, H.E.S.S., MAGIC, and VERITAS (JCAP, submitted), Search for Signatures of Dark Matter Annihilation in the Galactic Center with HAWC (PRL, submitted)
