A Survey of TeV emission from Galactic Supernova Remnants with HAWC

Abstract

Supernova remnants (SNRs) have long been hypothesized as the main source of Galactic Cosmic Rays up to PeV energies. Some of them have indeed been shown to accelerate protons to TeV energies and above. But which of them are indeed efficient accelerators of protons and nuclei? And up to which energies can they accelerate these particles? Measurements of non-thermal emission, especially in the X-ray and gamma-ray regimes, are essential to answer these questions. The High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, surveying the northern TeV gamma-ray sky, is currently the most sensitive wide field-of-view survey instrument in the VHE (very-high-energy, $>$100 GeV) range. With more than three years of data recorded, HAWC is ideally suited for an unbiased survey of gamma-ray emission from galactic SNRs, particularly at TeV energies and above. In this proceeding, I will give an overview of recent measurements of VHE gamma-ray emission from SNRs with the HAWC Observatory. Combined with data from other wavelengths, these measurements are used to derive information about the underlying particle populations such as the maximum acceleration energy and whether leptonic or hadronic processes are responsible for the emission.