Evidence that Ultra-High-Energy Gamma Rays are a Universal Feature Near Powerful Pulsars

Abstract

The highest-energy known gamma-ray sources are all located within 0.5 degrees of extremely powerful pulsars. This raises the question of whether ultra-high-energy (UHE; $>$ 56 TeV) gamma-ray emission is a universal feature expected near pulsars with a high spin-down power. Using four years of data from the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Gamma-Ray Observatory, we present a joint-likelihood analysis of ten extremely powerful pulsars to search for UHE gamma-ray emission correlated with these locations. We report a significant detection ($>$ 3$\sigma$), indicating that UHE gamma-ray emission is a generic feature of powerful pulsars. We discuss the emission mechanisms of the gamma rays and the implications of this result. The individual environment that each pulsar is found in appears to play a role in the amount of emission.

arXiv commentaccepted by ApJL

References in corpus (24)

• The ATNF Pulsar Catalogue
• A New Electron Density Model for Estimation of Pulsar and FRB Distances
• The H.E.S.S. Galactic plane survey
• Observation of the Crab Nebula with the HAWC Gamma-Ray Observatory
• Teraelectronvolt Astronomy
• Multiple Galactic Sources with Emission Above 56 TeV Detected by HAWC
• Klein-Nishina Effects in the Spectra of Non-Thermal Sources Immersed in External Radiation Fields
• 3HWC: The Third HAWC Catalog of Very-High-Energy Gamma-ray Sources
• First Detection of Photons with Energy Beyond 100 TeV from an Astrophysical Source
• Measurement of the Crab Nebula Spectrum Past 100 TeV with HAWC
• Using HAWC to Discover Invisible Pulsars
• Signatures of high energy protons in pulsar winds
• Particle Transport within the Pulsar Wind Nebula HESS J1825-137
• HAWC J2227+610 and its association with G106.3+2.7, a new potential Galactic PeVatron
• A search for new supernova remnant shells in the Galactic plane with H.E.S.S
• PSR J1838-0537: Discovery of a young, energetic gamma-ray pulsar
• ISM gas studies towards the TeV PWN HESS J1825-137 and northern region
• Discovery of an Energetic 38.5 ms Pulsar Powering the Gamma-ray Source IGR J18490-0000/HESS J1849-000
• IceCube Search for High-Energy Neutrino Emission from TeV Pulsar Wind Nebulae
• Ultra-high energy Inverse Compton emission from Galactic electron accelerators
• Revised predictions of neutrino fluxes from Pulsar Wind Nebulae
• TeV cosmic ray nuclei acceleration in shell-type supernova remnants with hard $\gamma$-ray spectra
• Radio study of the extended TeV source VER J1907+062
• Galaxy Formation in Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter Models

Cited by in corpus (29)

• The Highest Energy HAWC Sources are Likely Leptonic and Powered by Pulsars
• Evidence of TeV Halos Around Millisecond Pulsars
• Coherent curvature radiation: maximum luminosity and high-energy emission
• Where are Milky Way's Hadronic PeVatrons?
• A pulsar wind nebula origin of the LHAASO-detected UHE gamma-ray sources
• Population synthesis of pulsar wind nebulae and pulsar halos in the Milky Way -- Predicted contributions to the very-high-energy sky
• Multi-wavelength study of the galactic PeVatron candidate LHAASO J2108+5157
• HESS J1809$-$193: a halo of escaped electrons around a pulsar wind nebula?
• Galactic gamma-ray and neutrino emission from interacting cosmic-ray nuclei
• Diffuse Ultra-High-Energy Gamma-Ray Emission From TeV Halos
• The LHAASO PeVatron bright sky: what we learned
• Search for Extended Sources of Neutrino Emission in the Galactic Plane with IceCube
• Ultrahigh-energy Gamma Rays and Gravitational Waves from Primordial Exotic Stellar Bubbles
• Observation of gamma rays up to 320 TeV from the middle-aged TeV pulsar wind nebula HESS J1849$-$000
• Supernova connection of unidentified ultra high energy gamma-ray source LHAASO J2108+5157
• On the gamma-ray emission from the core of the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy
• LHAASO J2226+6057 as a pulsar wind nebula
• Study of maximum electron energy of sub-PeV pulsar wind nebulae by multiwavelength modelling
• Neutrinos from the gamma-ray source eHWC J1825-134: predictions for Km${}^3$ detectors
• eROSITA X-ray Analysis of the PeVatron Candidate Westerlund 1
• Constraining the Milky Way's Pulsar Population with the Cosmic-Ray Positron Fraction
• Investigating the energy distribution of the high-energy particles in the Crab nebula
• Escape of cosmic rays from perpendicular shocks in the circumstellar magnetic field
• The Cherenkov Telescope Array Will Test Whether Pulsars Generate the Galactic Center Gamma-Ray Excess
• A Stacking Survey of Gamma-ray Pulsars
• Analysis of the possible detection of the pulsar wind nebulae of PSR J1208-6238, J1341-6220, J1838-0537 and J1844-0346
• The Contribution From TeV Halos to the Isotropic Gamma-Ray Background
• HAWC Study of the Ultra-High-Energy Spectrum of MGRO J1908+06
• Escape of cosmic rays from perpendicular shocks in the interstellar magnetic field