Limits on the Diffuse Gamma-Ray Background above 10 TeV with HAWC
Abstract
The high-energy Diffuse Gamma-Ray Background (DGRB) is expected to be produced by unresolved isotropically distributed astrophysical objects, potentially including dark matter annihilation or decay emissions in galactic or extragalactic structures. The DGRB has only been observed below 1 TeV; above this energy, upper limits have been reported. Observations or stringent limits on the DGRB above this energy could have significant multi-messenger implications, such as constraining the origin of TeV-PeV astrophysical neutrinos detected by IceCube. The High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory, located in central Mexico at 4100 m above sea level, is sensitive to gamma rays from a few hundred GeV to several hundred TeV and continuously observes a wide field-of-view (2 sr). With its high-energy reach and large area coverage, HAWC is well-suited to notably improve searches for the DGRB at TeV energies. In this work, strict cuts have been applied to the HAWC dataset to better isolate gamma-ray air showers from background hadronic showers. The sensitivity to the DGRB was then verified using 535 days of Crab data and Monte Carlo simulations, leading to new limits above 10 TeV on the DGRB as well as prospective implications for multi-messenger studies.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2209.08106,
title = {Limits on the Diffuse Gamma-Ray Background above 10 TeV with HAWC},
author = {HAWC Collaboration and A. Albert and R. Alfaro and C. Alvarez and J. C. Arteaga-Velázquez and D. Avila Rojas and H. A. Ayala Solares and R. Babu and E. Belmont-Moreno and C. Brisbois and K. S. Caballero-Mora and T. Capistrán and A. Carramiñana and S. Casanova and O. Chaparro-Amaro and U. Cotti and J. Cotzomi and S. Coutiño de León and E. De la Fuente and R. Diaz Hernandez and B. L. Dingus and M. A. DuVernois and M. Durocher and J. C. Díaz-Vélez and K. Engel and C. Espinoza and K. L. Fan and M. Fernández Alonso and N. Fraija and D. Garcia and J. A. García-González and F. Garfias and M. M. González and J. A. Goodman and J. P. Harding and S. Hernandez and J. Hinton and D. Huang and F. Hueyotl-Zahuantitla and P. Hüntemeyer and A. Iriarte and V. Joshi and S. Kaufmann and D. Kieda and A. Lara and W. H. Lee and H. León Vargas and J. T. Linnemann and A. L. Longinotti and G. Luis-Raya and K. Malone and O. Martinez and J. Martínez-Castro and J. A. Matthews and P. Miranda-Romagnoli and J. A. Morales-Soto and E. Moreno and M. Mostafá and A. Nayerhoda and L. Nellen and M. Newbold and M. U. Nisa and R. Noriega-Papaqui and N. Omodei and A. Peisker and Y. Pérez Araujo and E. G. Pérez-Pérez and C. D. Rho and D. Rosa-González and E. Ruiz-Velasco and H. Salazar and F. Salesa Greus and A. Sandoval and M. Schneider and J. Serna-Franco and A. J. Smith and Y. Son and R. W. Springer and O. Tibolla and K. Tollefson and I. Torres and R. Torres-Escobedo and R. Turner and F. Ureña-Mena and L. Villaseñor and X. Wang and E. Willox and H. Zhou and C. de León and J. D. Álvarez},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.08106},
year = {2022}
}
Comments
8 pages, 3 figures