Pevatron at the Galactic Center: Multi-Wavelength Signatures from Millisecond Pulsars

Abstract

Diffuse TeV emission has been observed by H.E.S.S. in the Galactic Center region, in addition to the GeV gamma rays observed by Fermi. We propose that a population of unresolved millisecond pulsars located around the Galactic Center, suggested as possible candidates for the diffuse Galactic Center excess observed by Fermi, accelerate cosmic rays up to very high energies, and are thus also responsible for the TeV excess. We model analytically the diffusion of these accelerated protons and their interaction with the molecular clouds, producing gamma rays. The spatial and spectral dependences of the gamma rays produced can reproduce the H.E.S.S. observations, for a population of $\sim 10^4-10^5$ millisecond pulsars above the cosmic-ray luminosity $10^{34}{\mathrm{erg}\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$, with moderate acceleration efficiency. More precise measurements at the highest energies would allow us to constrain the properties of the pulsar population, such as the magnetic field or initial spin distributions.

24 pages, 12 figures, submitted to JCAP

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• Strong Evidence that the Galactic Bulge is Shining in Gamma Rays
• The Return of the Templates: Revisiting the Galactic Center Excess with Multi-Messenger Observations
• The Hunt for Pevatrons: The Case of Supernova Remnants
• MAGIC observations of the diffuse $\gamma$-ray emission in the vicinity of the Galactic Centre
• VERITAS Observations of the Galactic Center Region at Multi-TeV Gamma-Ray Energies
• Proton acceleration in pulsar magnetospheres
• Quiescent and active galactic nuclei as factories of merging compact objects in the era of gravitational-wave astronomy
• Where are Milky Way's Hadronic PeVatrons?
• Magnetically Arrested Disks in Quiescent Black-Hole Binaries: Formation Scenario, Observable Signatures, and Potential PeVatrons
• Cherenkov Telescope Array sensitivity to the putative millisecond pulsar population responsible for the Galactic center excess
• Inverse Compton emission from millisecond pulsars in the Galactic bulge
• Galactic center gamma-ray production by cosmic rays from stellar winds and Sgr A East
• Modeling the Galactic center gamma-ray emission with more realistic cosmic-ray dynamics
• Galactic Centre as an efficient source of cosmic rays
• Molecular ionization rates and ultracompact dark matter minihalos
• Bayesian WIMP detection with the Cherenkov Telescope Array