An All-Sky Search for Bursts of Very High Energy Gamma Rays with HAWC

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dc.contributor.advisorGoodman, Jordanen_US
dc.contributor.authorWood, Joshua Randallen_US
dc.contributor.departmentPhysicsen_US
dc.contributor.publisherDigital Repository at the University of Marylanden_US
dc.contributor.publisherUniversity of Maryland (College Park, Md.)en_US
dc.date.accessioned2017-01-24T06:34:12Z
dc.date.available2017-01-24T06:34:12Z
dc.date.issued2016en_US
dc.description.abstractA new ground-based wide-field extensive air shower array known as the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory promises a new window to monitoring the ~100 GeV gamma-ray sky with the potential for detecting a high energy spectral cutoff in gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). It represents a roughly 15 times sensitivity gain over the previous generation of wide-field gamma-ray air shower instruments and is able to detect the Crab Nebula at high significance (>5 sigma) with each daily transit. Its wide field-of-view (~2 sr) and >95% uptime make it an ideal instrument for detecting GRB emission at ~100 GeV with an expectation for observing ~1 GRB per year based on existing measurements of GRB emission. An all-sky, self-triggered search for VHE emission produced by GRBs with HAWC has been developed. We present the results of this search on three characteristic GRB emission timescales, 0.2 seconds, 1 second, and 10 seconds, in the first year of the fully-populated HAWC detector which is the most sensitive dataset to date. No significant detections were found, allowing us to place upper limits on the rate of GRBs containing appreciable emission in the ~100 GeV band. These constraints exclude previously unexamined parameter space.en_US
dc.identifierhttps://doi.org/10.13016/M2B24Z
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/18949
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.subject.pqcontrolledAstrophysicsen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledgamma-ray bursten_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledGRBen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledHAWCen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledvery high energyen_US
dc.subject.pquncontrolledVHEen_US
dc.titleAn All-Sky Search for Bursts of Very High Energy Gamma Rays with HAWCen_US
dc.typeDissertationen_US

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