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F. Samuelson (Los Alamos National Laboratory), Milagro Collaboration
The Milagro Gamma Ray Observatory is a large-area water Cherenkov detector capable of continuously monitoring the entire sky for TeV particle events, making it uniquely capable of searching for transient sources of VHE gamma rays. The core of the detector is a 60m x 80m x 8m pond instrumented with 723 PMTs deployed in two layers.
Transient and triggered GRB searches have been performed, yielding interesting limits. Constant TeV sources are also observable. Absolute detector energy calibration is possible using cosmic rays blocked by the moon. Very high energy solar physics events can also be observed with the detector.
On-going improvements to Milagro include a 40,000 square-meter array of 170 auxiliary outrigger water Cherenkov detectors and more intelligent triggering schemes. These upgrades will improve sensitivity and lower the energy threshold of the detector.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: fws@lanl.gov
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 34
© 2002. The American Astronomical Soceity.