Gamma-Ray Astronomy with the HAWC Observatory

The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov Observatory (HAWC) is a TeV gamma-ray detector located at 4100 m a.s.l. on the slope of the Sierra Negra volcano in Puebla, Mexico. The detector, completed in early 2015, consists of 300 water Cherenkov detectors (WCDs) spread on a 22000 m(2) area. Each WCD is instrumented with four photo-multiplier tubes used to detect energetic secondary particles produced after the interaction of a primary cosmic ray or gamma-ray with the atmosphere. HAWC observes two thirds of the TeV sky every day and it is sensitive to primary particles with energies from several hundred GeV to a hundred TeV. Some of the HAWC scientific goals are to study the Galactic sources at high energies, extended sources, diffuse gamma-ray emission, and transient emission from Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) and Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs).The recent results from the experiment and the future plans of the collaboration will be discussed in this paper.