Description
The High Altitude Water Cherenkov Gamma Ray Observatory (HAWC) is a wide-field gamma-ray detector under construction at an elevation of 4100 meters above sea level in Mexico. HAWC will be sensitive to gamma rays with energies between 100 GeV and 100 TeV and have sensitivity more than an order-of-magnitude greater than its predecessor Milagro. HAWC consists of 300 large detectors each containing ~200,000 liters of clean water and four photomultiplier tubes. HAWC’s modular design means that even though the detector construction will not be completed until the end of 2014, we are already taking data with HAWC-30 and will begin detector operations in August of this year with HAWC-100. In this talk I will describe HAWC’s design, sensitivity and construction progress. I will also show initial results from HAWC-30.