First year results of the High Altitude Water Cherenkov observatory

TL;DR

The HAWC observatory, operational since 2015 at high altitude, surveys the sky for TeV gamma-ray sources with high efficiency, providing valuable data on active galaxies and the Galactic Plane.

Contribution

This paper presents the first year of observational results from the HAWC gamma-ray observatory, highlighting its capabilities and initial scientific findings.

Findings

Surveyed 2/3 of the sky daily

Monitored active galaxies and Galactic sources

Achieved detection sensitivity of 1 Crab per day

Abstract

The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) gamma-ray observatory is a wide field of view (1.8 Sr) and high duty cycle (>95% up-time) detector of unique capabilities for the study of TeV gamma-ray sources. Installed at an altitude of 4100m in the Northern slope of Volc\'an Sierra Negra, Puebla, by a collaboration of about thirty institutions of Mexico and the United States, HAWC has been in full operations since March 2015, surveying 2/3 of the sky every sidereal day, monitoring active galaxies and mapping sources in the Galactic Plane to a detection level of 1 Crab per day. This contribution summarizes the main results of the first year of observations of the HAWC gamma-ray observatory.