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A survey of the highest-energy astrophysical sources with the HAWC Observatory
Add to Calendar 2018-10-04T14:00:00 2018-10-04T16:00:00 UTC A survey of the highest-energy astrophysical sources with the HAWC Observatory

Physics Ph.D. Defense

Davey Laboratory (339)
Start DateThu, Oct 04, 2018
10:00 AM
to
End DateThu, Oct 04, 2018
12:00 PM
Presented By
Kelly Malone, The Pennsylvania State University

Physics Ph.D. Defense

Event Series:

Since Galactic cosmic rays are observed in the PeV range, at least a few sources that accelerate particles to this energy (“PeVatrons”) should exist. A PeVatron is expected to have a hard, hadronic gamma-ray spectrum that extends to at least tens of TeV without any apparent spectral break or cutoff. High energy (> 100 TeV) gamma ray observations are therefore essential to the study of these cosmic accelerators. Additionally, any leptonic component of the gamma-ray emission is suppressed at these energies. The High Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory (HAWC) is well poised to perform all-sky surveys due to its high duty cycle and large field-of-view. I will discuss a new energy estimation algorithm for HAWC that extends the dynamic range of the experiment past 100 TeV and validate the method on the Crab Nebula. I will then apply the method to the Galactic plane and discuss HAWC’s first high-energy (>56 and >100 TeV) source catalogs and discuss whether any of them can be identified as PeVatron candidates.