Southern Wide-field-of-view Gamma-ray Observatory (SWGO)

P. ABREU, ...,A MARIAZZI, ... ET AL.

Santa Fe

Workshop; Latin American Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructure (LASF4RI) Workshop; 2019

Latin American Strategy for High Energy Physics

We describe plans for the development of the Southern Wide-field-of-view Gamma-rayObservatory (SWGO), a next-generation instrument with sensitivity to the very-high-energy (VHE)band to be constructed in the Southern Hemisphere. SWGO will provide wide-field coverage ofa large portion of the southern sky, effectively complementing current and future instruments inthe global multi-messenger effort to understand extreme astrophysical phenomena throughout theuniverse. A detailed description of science topics addressed by SWGO is available in the science casewhite paper. This manuscript is based mainly on our recent proposal to Astro2020 .The development of SWGO will draw on extensive experience within the community in design-ing, constructing, and successfully operating wide-field instruments using observations of extensiveair showers. The detector will consist of a compact inner array of particle detection units sur-rounded by a sparser outer array. A key advantage of the design of SWGO is that it can beconstructed using current, already proven technology. We estimate a construction cost of 54MUSD and a cost of 7.5M USD for 5 years of operation. The recently formed SWGO collabora-tion will conduct site selection and detector optimization studies prior to construction, with fulloperations foreseen to begin in 2026. Throughout this document we give a general descriptionof the proposal and summarize the key science goals of SWGO, which include unveiling Galacticparticle accelerators, exploring the dynamic universe, and probing physics beyond the StandardModel.