The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Gamma-ray Observatory is a wide field-of-view, continuously operating, teraelectronvolt (TeV) gamma-ray telescope that will explore the origin of cosmic rays, study the acceleration of particles in extreme physical environments, and search for new TeV physics. When HAWC begins operations in August 2013 with 100 Water Cherenkov Detectors it will be the most sensitive wide-field detector in the TeV range, with an approximately five times increase in sensitivity over the previous generation of detectors. During the first year of operation, HAWC's sensitivity will steadily increase as the full 250 detectors are gradually brought online. HAWC will monitor the northern sky and make coincident observations with other observatories including VERITAS, HESS, Magic, IceCube and the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope for multi-wavelength and multi-messenger studies of the high-energy sky. HAWC will observe Galactic sources in the TeV energy range, detect diffuse emission from regions of the Galactic plane, observe known TeV active galactic nuclei and the brightest known gigaelectronvolt (GeV) gamma-ray bursts, and with its significant increase in sensitivity it is poised to discover new high-energy phenomena in the Universe.
The University of Maryland group has a significant leadership role in HAWC. This award will enable the University of Maryland group to continue work in the construction, operation and science of HAWC including reconstruction and simulation software, maintenance of the multi-Petabyte data archive, and science analysis.
Broader Impacts: HAWC is an all-sky instrument that will serve as a TeV "finder" telescope for ground-based observatories, and it can be used to extend measurements of satellite-discovered sources to TeV energies. HAWC will build on the strong outreach record of Milagro to bring this exciting field of research to students and the general public. Since HAWC is a joint Mexican-American project, it presents an opportunity to attract Hispanic-American students to science and astroparticle physics.
