The Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory

Abstract

The Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory (SWGO) is an R&D project to plan and design the next observatory to detect gamma rays in the Southern hemisphere. The experiment, planned to be placed at an altitude greater than 4400 m, is primarily based on water Cherenkov detectors units and is expected to measure gamma rays from a few hundred GeV up to the PeV scale. SWGO will complement CTA and the existing ground-based particle detectors of the Northern Hemisphere, namely HAWC and LHAASO, having a rich science programme. The collaboration is highly invested in evaluating different detector and array configurations, prototyping, and site search. In this presentation, I shall present an overview of the project's activities, achievements and future plans.

SWGO: a wide-field of view gamma-ray observatory in the southern hemisphere

“…The SWGO [9] (Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory) Collaboration was founded in 2019 with the goal of realizing a wide field of view, high duty cycle observatory, located at a latitude between −10 • and −30 • (to observe the galactic center) and at an altitude of at least 4400 m a.s.l. (having the goal of reaching an energy threshold as low as 100-200 GeV); having such constraints the only possible sites are in South America in the Andes.…”

ICRC 2023 Rapporteur: Status of the Gamma-ray Astronomy field

“…In the Southern Hemisphere, there are arrays planned or being constructed with detectors based on scintillators like ALPACA [42] or its upgrade Mega-ALPACA [43]. The Southern Wide Field Gamma-ray Observatory (SWGO) [44], whose technology and location are still under study, has ambitious sensitivity and resolution goals to be able to investigate multi-TeV emitting sources. There are also proposals like PANOSETI, the Pulsed optical signal detector that can also be used for PeV Gamma-ray Astronomy [45].…”