Gamma/hadron Separation With The HAWC Observatory
Abstract
The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) gamma-ray observatory observes atmospheric showers produced by incident gamma rays and cosmic rays with energy from 300 GeV to more than 100 TeV. A crucial phase in analyzing gamma-ray sources using ground-based gamma-ray detectors like HAWC is to identify the showers produced by gamma rays or hadrons. The HAWC observatory records roughly 25,000 events per second, with hadrons representing the vast majority (>99.9%) of these events. The standard gamma/hadron separation technique in HAWC uses a simple rectangular cut involving only two parameters. This work describes the implementation of more sophisticated gamma/hadron separation techniques, via machine learning methods (boosted decision trees and neural networks), and summarizes the resulting improvements in gamma/hadron separation obtained in HAWC.
Recommended Citation
R. Alfaro et al., "Gamma/hadron Separation With The HAWC Observatory," Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A Accelerators Spectrometers Detectors and Associated Equipment, vol. 1039, article no. 166984, Elsevier, Sep 2022.
Department(s)
Physics
Keywords and Phrases
Crab Nebula; G/H separation; High energy; Machine Learning
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
0168-9002
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Citation
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2025 Elsevier, All rights reserved.
Publication Date
11 Sep 2022
Comments
National Science Foundation, Grant PRODEP-SEP UDG-CA-499