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HAWC Collaboration(Albert, A. et al), & Salesa Greus, F. (2022). Cosmic ray spectrum of protons plus helium nuclei between 6 and 158 TeV from HAWC data. Phys. Rev. D, 105(6), 063021–26pp.
Abstract: A measurement with high statistics of the differential energy spectrum of light elements in cosmic rays, in particular, of primary H plus He nuclei, is reported. The spectrum is presented in the energy range from 6 to 158 TeV per nucleus. Data was collected with the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory between June 2015 and June 2019. The analysis was based on a Bayesian unfolding procedure, which was applied on a subsample of vertical HAWC data that was enriched to 82% of events induced by light nuclei. To achieve the mass separation, a cut on the lateral age of air shower data was set guided by predictions of CORSIKA/QGSJET-I1-04 simulations. The measured spectrum is consistent with a broken power-law spectrum and shows a kneelike feature at around E = 24.0(-3.1)(+3.6) TeV, with a spectral index gamma = -2.51 +/- 0.02 before the break and with gamma = -2.83 +/- 0.02 above it. The feature has a statistical significance of 4.1 sigma. Within systematic uncertainties, the significance of the spectral break is 0.8 sigma.
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HAWC Collaboration(Albert, A. et al), & Salesa Greus, F. (2022). Probing the Extragalactic Mid-infrared Background with HAWC. Astrophys. J., 933(2), 223–8pp.
Abstract: The extragalactic background light (EBL) contains all the radiation emitted by nuclear and accretion processes in stars and compact objects since the epoch of recombination. Measuring the EBL density directly is challenging, especially in the near-to-far-infrared wave band, mainly due to the zodiacal light foreground. Instead, gamma-ray astronomy offers the possibility to indirectly set limits on the EBL by studying the effects of gamma-ray absorption in the very high energy (VHE: >100 GeV) spectra of distant blazars. The High Altitude Water Cherenkov Gamma Ray Observatory (HAWC) is one of the few instruments sensitive to gamma rays with energies above 10 TeV. This offers the opportunity to probe the EBL in the near/mid-IR region: lambda = 1-100 μm. In this study, we fit physically motivated emission models to Fermi-LAT gigaelectronvolt data to extrapolate the intrinsic teraelectronvolt spectra of blazars. We then simulate a large number of absorbed spectra for different randomly generated EBL model shapes and calculate Bayesian credible bands in the EBL intensity space by comparing and testing the agreement between the absorbed spectra and HAWC extragalactic observations of two blazars. The resulting bands are in agreement with current EBL lower and upper limits, showing a downward trend toward higher wavelength values lambda > 10 μm also observed in previous measurements.
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HAWC Collaboration(Albert, A. et al), & Salesa Greus, F. (2022). Constraints on the Very High Energy Gamma-Ray Emission from Short GRBs with HAWC. Astrophys. J., 936(2), 126–14pp.
Abstract: Many gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been observed from radio wavelengths, and a few at very high energies (VHEs, >100 GeV). The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) gamma-ray observatory is well suited to study transient phenomena at VHEs owing to its large field of view and duty cycle. These features allow for searches of VHE emission and can probe different model assumptions of duration and spectra. In this paper, we use data collected by HAWC between 2014 December and 2020 May to search for emission in the energy range from 80 to 800 GeV coming from a sample of 47 short GRBs that triggered the Fermi, Swift, and Konus satellites during this period. This analysis is optimized to search for delayed and extended VHE emission within the first 20 s of each burst. We find no evidence of VHE emission, either simultaneous or delayed, with respect to the prompt emission. Upper limits (90% confidence level) derived on the GRB fluence are used to constrain the synchrotron self-Compton forward-shock model. Constraints for the interstellar density as low as 10(-2) cm(-3) are obtained when assuming z = 0.3 for bursts with the highest keV fluences such as GRB 170206A and GRB 181222841. Such a low density makes observing VHE emission mainly from the fast-cooling regime challenging.
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HAWC Collaboration(Albert, A. et al), & Salesa Greus, F. (2022). gamma-Ray Emission from Classical Nova V392 Per: Measurements from Fermi and HAWC. Astrophys. J., 940(2), 141–14pp.
Abstract: This paper reports on the gamma-ray properties of the 2018 Galactic nova V392 Per, spanning photon energies similar to 0.1 GeV-100 TeV by combining observations from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope and the HAWC Observatory. As one of the most rapidly evolving gamma-ray signals yet observed for a nova, GeV gamma-rays with a power-law spectrum with an index Gamma = 2.0 +/- 0.1 were detected over 8 days following V392 Per's optical maximum. HAWC observations constrain the TeV gamma-ray signal during this time and also before and after. We observe no statistically significant evidence of TeV gamma-ray emission from V392 Per, but present flux limits. Tests disfavor the extension of the Fermi Large Area Telescope spectrum to energies above 5 TeV by 2 standard deviations (95%) or more. We fit V392 Per's GeV gamma-rays with hadronic acceleration models, incorporating optical observations, and compare the calculations with HAWC limits.
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HAWC Collaboration(Alfaro, R. et al), & Salesa Greus, F. (2022). Study of the Very High Energy Emission of M87 through its Broadband Spectral Energy Distribution. Astrophys. J., 934(2), 158–9pp.
Abstract: The radio galaxy M87 is the central dominant galaxy of the Virgo Cluster. Very high-energy (VHE, greater than or similar to 0.1 TeV) emission from M87 has been detected by imaging air Cherenkov telescopes. Recently, marginal evidence for VHE long-term emission has also been observed by the High Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory, a gamma-ray and cosmic-ray detector array located in Puebla, Mexico. The mechanism that produces VHE emission in M87 remains unclear. This emission originates in its prominent jet, which has been spatially resolved from radio to X-rays. In this paper, we construct a spectral energy distribution from radio to gamma rays that is representative of the nonflaring activity of the source, and in order to explain the observed emission, we fit it with a lepto-hadronic emission model. We found that this model is able to explain nonflaring VHE emission of M87 as well as an orphan flare reported in 2005.
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