Gamma-Ray Pulsars and Massive Stars in the Solar Neighborhood

Abstract

We revisit the association of unidentified Galactic plane EGRET sources with tracers of recent massive star formation and death. Up-to-date catalogs of OB associations, SNRs, young pulsars, HII regions and young open clusters were used in finding counterparts for a recent list of EGRET sources. It has been argued for some time that EGRET source positions are correlated with SNRs and OB associations as a class; we extend such analyses by finding additional counterparts and assessing the probability of individual source identifications. Among the several scenarios relating EGRET sources to massive stars, we focus on young neutron stars as the origin of the gamma-ray emission. The characteristics of the candidate identifications are compared to the known gamma-ray pulsar sample and to detailed Galactic population syntheses using our outer gap pulsar model of gamma-ray emission. Both the spatial distribution and luminosity function of the candidates are in good agreement with the model predictions; we infer that young pulsars can account for the bulk of the excess low latitude EGRET sources. We show that with this identification, the gamma-ray point sources provide an important new window into the history of recent massive star death in the solar neighborhood.

9 pages, 5 figures, uses aassize.sty (included). To appear in Ap.J. See http://astrophys.stanford.edu/home/ion

Cited by in corpus (45)

• The Large Area Telescope on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Mission
• The Second Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars
• The First Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars
• Radio to Gamma-Ray Emission from Shell-type Supernova Remnants: Predictions from Non-linear Shock Acceleration Models
• First search for gravitational waves from known pulsars with Advanced LIGO
• The Third Fermi Large Area Telescope Catalog of Gamma-ray Pulsars
• Variability of EGRET Gamma-Ray Sources
• PSR J2229+6114: Discovery of an Energetic Young Pulsar in the Error Box of the EGRET Source 3EG J2227+6122
• Constraints on the Galactic Population of TEV Pulsar Wind Nebulae Using Fermi Large Area Telescope Observations
• The Gamma-Ray Blazar Content of the Northern Sky
• A variability analysis of low-latitude unidentified gamma-ray sources
• The ASCA Catalog of Potential X-Ray Counterparts of GeV Sources
• Fermi-LAT Search for Pulsar Wind Nebulae around gamma-ray Pulsars
• The Galactic Population of Young Gamma-ray Pulsars
• PSR J2021+3651: A Young Radio Pulsar Coincident with an Unidentified EGRET Gamma-ray Source
• Gamma ray astrophysics: the EGRET results
• High-Energy Gamma-Ray Observations of Two Young, Energetic Radio Pulsars
• X-ray, Radio, and Optical Observations of the Putative Pulsar in the Supernova Remnant CTA 1
• A Survey of 56 Mid-latitude EGRET Error Boxes for Radio Pulsars
• Observations of PSR J2021+3651 and its X-ray Pulsar Wind Nebula G75.2+0.1
• The Blandford-Znajek mechanism and emission from isolated accreting black holes
• A Possible X-ray and Radio Counterpart of the High-Energy Gamma-ray Source 3EG J2227+6122
• The `Rabbit': A Potential Radio Counterpart of GeV J1417-6100
• A Neutron-Star Identification for the High-Energy Gamma-ray Source 3EG J1835+5918 Detected in the ROSAT All-Sky Survey
• Source population synthesis and the Galactic diffuse gamma-ray emission
• Emission from Isolated Black Holes and MACHOs Accreting from the Interstellar Medium
• Multiwavelength Studies of PSR J1420-6048, a Young Pulsar in the Kookaburra
• Dissecting the Cygnus Region with TeV Gamma Rays and Neutrinos
• The Next Geminga: Deep Multiwavelength Observations of a Neutron Star Identified with 3EG J1835+5918
• Multiwavelength Examination of the COS-B Field 2CG 075+00 Yields a Blazar Identification for 3EG J2016+3657
• Recently discovered pulsars and unidentified EGRET sources
• Discovery of the Young, Energetic Radio Pulsar PSR J1105-6107
• Suzaku X-ray Follow-up Observations of Seven Unassociated Fermi-LAT Gamma-ray Sources at High Galactic Latitudes
• A Dark Cloud Associated an Unidentified EGRET Source
• The pulsar contribution to the diffuse galactic gamma-ray emission
• Gamma-ray Emission Properties from Mature Pulsars in the Galaxy and in the Gould Belt
• A VLA Search for the Geminga Pulsar: A Bayesian Limit on a Scintillating Source
• XMM-Newton and ESO observations of the two unidentified gamma-ray sources 3EG J0616-3310 and 3EG J1249-8330
• Discovery of a New X-ray Filled Radio Supernova Remnant Around the Pulsar Wind Nebula in 3EG J1809-2328
• Dense gas clouds and the Unidentified EGRET sources
• The Multiwavelength Approach to Unidentified Gamma-Ray Sources
• Pulsars and Their Nebulae as EGRET Sources
• The Gamma-ray bright BL Lac object RX J1211+2242
• Oscillation Effects On Neutrinos From The Early Phase Of a Nearby Supernova
• High Energy Gamma Rays