27-29 November 2019
Mexico/General timezone
Contribution plenary
Surveying active galactic nuclei with the HAWC gamma-ray observatory
Speakers
- Dr. Alberto CARRAMINANA
Content
Active galactic nuclei (AGN) are powerful cosmic accelerators, manifested as numerous gamma-ray sources at GeV energies. They are suspected to generate the highest energy cosmic rays, a long term presumption now supported by the recent observation of neutrinos from a BL Lacertae object. The study of AGN at the highest gamma-ray energies is hampered by the interaction of very high energy photons with cosmic backgrounds of optical and infrared light, that sets a limit to the range of our observations. The HAWC observations of Mrk 421 and Mrk 501 are providing fresh insight into the extreme processes of their central engines. I will review these observations and present the search for other AGN by HAWC.