Gamma-ray halos around pulsars as the key to understanding cosmic ray transport in the Galaxy [HEAP]

http://arxiv.org/abs/2202.06899


Pulsars are factories of relativistic electrons and positrons that propagate away from the pulsar, permeating later our Galaxy. The acceleration and propagation of these particles are a matter of intense debate. In the last few years, we had the opportunity to directly observing the injection of these particles into the interstellar medium through the discovery of gamma-ray halos around pulsars. This new type of gamma-ray source is produced by electrons and positrons diffusing out of the pulsar wind nebula and scattering ambient photon fields to produce gamma rays. This new field of study comes with a number of observations and constraints at different wavelengths and a variety of theoretical models explaining the characteristics of these halos. We examine the characteristics of the propagation of cosmic rays inferred from the observations of halos and their local and global implications on particle transport in the Galaxy. We also discuss the prospects for observations of these sources with facilities such as LHAASO, or CTA or SWGO in the near future.

Read this paper on arXiv…

R. López-Coto, E. Wilhelmi, F. Aharonian, et. al.
Tue, 15 Feb 22
70/75

Comments: Published in Nature Astronomy; authors’ version. Link to the paper in this https URL