Gamma-ray light curves for the BL Lac Mrk 421 using HAWC data derived with a new approach

J. A. García-González, M. M. González, N. Fraija

Published 2019-08-26Version 1

The HAWC gamma ray observatory is located at the Sierra Negra Volcano in Puebla, Mexico, at an altitude of 4,100 meters. HAWC is a wide field of view array of 300 water Cherenkov detectors that are continuously surveying 2sr of the sky since March 2015. The large collected data sample consisting in more than 3 years makes HAWC an ideal instrument to perform an unbiased monitoring of blazars in the very-high-energy (VHE) emission. This is particular relevant for Mrk 421, one of the closest and brightest blazars in the gamma-ray/X-ray classified as highsynchrotron-peaked BL Lac class. In this work we present light curves for Mrk 421 and the Crab nebula obtained with the first 17 months of data and a new analysis framework. We compare the results with the light curves reported in [1]. The main advantage of the new framework is the capability to derive fluxes for arbitrary timescales. We show that both, previous and present, methods give consistent results