12–23 Jul 2021
Online
Europe/Berlin timezone

A search for spectral hardening in HAWC sources above 56 TeV

16 Jul 2021, 18:00
1h 30m
TBA

TBA

Poster GAI | Gamma Ray Indirect Discussion

Speaker

Dr Kelly Malone (Los Alamos National Laboratory)

Description

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 hadronic in origin. If it is hadronic in origin, it would imply the presence of protons with energies up to ~1 PeV near the source. We have searched other 3HWC sources for the presence of this spectral hardening feature. If observed, this would imply that the sources could make good PeVatron candidates.

Keywords

pevatrons, TeV, TeV gamma rays, HAWC, PWN, Galactic

Subcategory Experimental Results
Collaboration HAWC

Primary authors

Dr Kelly Malone (Los Alamos National Laboratory) for the HAWC Collaboration

Presentation materials