Speaker
Zigfried Hampel-Arias
(UW Madison)
Description
The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory records the air showers produced by cosmic rays and gamma rays at a rate of about 15 kHz. While the events observed by HAWC are 99.9% hadronic cosmic rays, this background can be strongly suppressed using topological cuts that preferentially select electromagnetic air showers. Using this capability of HAWC, we can create a sample of air showers dominated by gamma rays and cosmic electrons and positrons. HAWC is one of the few operating observatories capable of measuring showers produced by e- and e+ primaries above 1 TeV, and can record these showers from 2/3 of the sky each day. We describe the sensitivity of HAWC to leptonic cosmic rays, and discuss prospects for the measurement of the e+e- flux and possible approaches for e+ and e- charge separation with the HAWC detector.
| Registration number following "ICRC2015-I/" | 721 |
|---|---|
| Collaboration | HAWC |
Authors
Mehr Un Nisa
(University of Rochester)
Segev BenZvi
(University of Rochester)
Zigfried Hampel-Arias
(UW Madison)
