Absence of TeV halos around millisecond pulsars

Abstract

TeV halos are extended very-high-energy (VHE; 0.1-100 TeV) gamma-ray emission around middle-aged pulsars. So far they have only been found around isolated pulsars, but it has been suggested that they may also be powered by millisecond pulsars (MSPs). We searched for VHE gamma-ray emission from MSPs reported by radio and GeV gamma-ray observatories in 2565 days of data from the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory. We found no significant emission from individual pulsars. By combining the likelihood profiles of all MSPs accessible to HAWC, our analysis suggests that the excess emission around the MSP population is consistent with a background. Our result suggests that MSPs are not as efficient as isolated pulsars in producing TeV halos. This finding has strong implications on the physics interpretation of the Galactic Center GeV excess and high-latitude Galactic diffuse emission.

11 pages, 8 figures. Published as Editor's Suggestion in Phys. Rev. D, 6 February, 2025

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Search for TeV emission from spider millisecond pulsars with HAWC
• Gamma-Ray Millisecond Pulsars: Off-pulse Emission Characteristics, Phase-Resolved Pseudo-Luminosity--Cutoff Energy Correlation, and High-energy Pulsed Emission