NBIA Seminar: Harm Schoorlemmer

Over the last couple of years, the use of particle detectors at high elevation sites provided a fresh look on the gamma-ray sky. Observatories like HAWC, and more recently LHAASO, have not only significantly increased the number of TeV observed gamma-ray sources, but also they opened-up a new energy regime in astronomy. Several astrophysical objects are now confirmed to emit significantly above 100 TeV photon energy, which marks the beginning of ultra-high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. The recent successes of this technique have all been obtained in the Northern sky, while some of the most prominent astrophysical targets are only observable from the South. This motivated the development of the Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory. In this seminar, I will provide an overview of the goals and current status of this project.