SCIENCE

SWGO

Overview

The Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory (SWGO) is a planned ground-based gamma-ray detector in the Southern Hemisphere, designed to achieve a wide field of view and nearly 100% duty cycle. It will be located in Atacama Astronomical Park in Chile at an altitude of 4,770 meters. SWGO will cover an energy range from hundreds of GeV up to the PeV scale. Similar to HAWC, its design is based primarily on water Cherenkov detector units. Its primary science goals include the study of Galactic sources and transient phenomena as well as indirect searches for dark matter and investigations of cosmic rays. The project is currently in the research and development phase. 

Research Topics

  • Detector prototyping
  • PMT characterization
  • Analysis framework development
  • Survey of southern sky gamma-ray science 

Senior Personnel

Ke Fang
Michael DuVernois

WIPAC Contributions

The WIPAC team will develop and fabricate the PMT base and front-end electronics, work on the timing system and electrical grounding, and contribute to scientific studies.

Select Publications

Science Prospects for the Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory: SWGO
SWGO Collaboration: P. Abreu et al
Phys. Rev. D (2026), arXiv:2503.21005
arxiv.org