No Arabic abstract
Recent HESS observations of the ~200 pc scale diffuse gamma-ray emission from the central molecular zone (CMZ) suggest the presence of a PeV cosmic-ray accelerator (PeVatron) located in the inner 10 pc region of the Galactic Center. Interestingly, the gamma-ray spectrum of the point-like source (HESS J1745-290) in the Galactic Center shows a cutoff at ~10 TeV, implying a cutoff around 100 TeV in the cosmic-ray proton spectrum. Here we propose that the gamma-ray emission from the inner and the outer regions may be explained self-consistently by run-away protons from a single, yet fading accelerator. In this model, gamma rays from the CMZ region are produced by protons injected in the past, while gamma rays from the inner region are produced by protons injected more recently. We suggest that the blast wave formed in a tidal disruption event (TDE) caused by the supermassive black hole (Sgr A*) could serve as such a fading accelerator. With typical parameters of the TDE blast wave, gamma-ray spectra of both the CMZ region and HESS J1745-290 can be reproduced simultaneously. Meanwhile, we find that the cosmic-ray energy density profile in the CMZ region may also be reproduced in the fading accelerator model when appropriate combinations of the particle injection history and the diffusion coefficient of cosmic rays are adopted.
The total cosmic ray electron spectrum (electrons plus positrons) exhibits a break at a particle energy of $sim 1rm~TeV$ and extends without any attenuation up to $rm sim 20~ TeV $. Synchrotron and inverse Compton energy losses strongly constrain both the age and the distance of the potential sources of TeV and multi-TeV electrons to $rmapprox 10^5~yr$ and $rm approx 100-500~pc$, depending on both the absolute value and energy dependence of the cosmic ray diffusion coefficient. This suggests that only a few, or just one nearby discrete source may explain the observed spectrum of high energy electrons. On the other hand the measured positron fraction, after initially increasing with particle energy, saturates at a level well below 0.5 and likely drops above $sim 400-500$ GeV. This means that the local source(s) of TeV electrons should not produce positrons in equal amount, ruling out scenarios involving pulsars/pulsar winds as the main sources of high energy leptons. In this paper we show that a single, local, and fading source can naturally account for the entire spectrum of cosmic ray electrons in the TeV domain. Even though the nature of such source remains unclear, we discuss known cosmic ray accelerators, such as supernova remnant and stellar wind shocks, which are believed to accelerate preferentially electrons rather than positrons.
We present a novel interpretation of the gamma-ray diffuse emission measured by H.E.S.S. in the Galactic Center (GC) region and the Galactic ridge. Our starting base is an updated analysis of PASS8 Fermi-LAT data, which allows to extend down to few GeV the spectra measured by H.E.S.S. and to infer the primary CR radial distribution above 100 GeV. We compare those results with a CR transport model assuming a harder scaling of the diffusion coefficient with rigidity in the inner Galaxy. Such a behavior reproduces the radial dependence of the CR spectral index recently inferred from Fermi-LAT measurements in the inner GP. We find that, in this scenario, the bulk of the Galactic ridge emission can be naturally explained by the interaction of the diffuse, steady-state Galactic CR sea interacting with the gas present in the Central molecular zone. The evidence of a GC PeVatron is significantly weaker than that inferred adopting a conventional (softer) CR sea.
The Tibet ASgamma experiment just reported their measurement of sub-PeV diffuse gamma ray emission from the Galactic disk, with the highest energy up to 957 TeV. These gamma-rays are most likely the hadronic origin by cosmic ray interaction with interstellar gas in the Galaxy. This measurement provides direct evidence to the hypothesis that the Galactic cosmic rays can be accelerated beyond PeV energies. In this work, we try to explain the sub-PeV diffuse gamma-ray spectrum within cosmic rays diffusive propagation model. We find there is a tension between the sub-PeV diffuse gamma rays and the local cosmic ray spectrum. To describe the sub-PeV diffuse gamma-ray flux, it generally requires larger local cosmic-ray flux than measurement in the knee region. We further calculate the PeV neutrino flux from the cosmic ray propagation model. Even all of these sub-PeV diffuse gamma rays originate from the propagation, the Galactic neutrinos only account for less than ~15% of observed flux, most of which are still from extragalactic sources.
Most of the diffuse Galactic GeV gamma-ray emission is produced via collisions of cosmic ray (CR) protons with ISM protons. As such the observed spectra of the gamma-rays and the CRs should be strongly linked. Recent observations of Fermi-LAT exhibit a hardening of the gamma-ray spectrum at around a hundred GeV, between the Sagittarius and Carina tangents, and a further hardening at a few degrees above and below the Galactic plane. However, standard CR propagation models that assume a time independent source distribution and a location independent diffusion cannot give rise to a spatially dependent CR (and hence gamma-ray) spectral slopes. Here we consider a dynamic spiral arm model in which the distribution of CR sources is concentrated in the (dynamic) spiral arms, and we study the effects of this model on the $pi^0$-decay produced gamma-ray spectra. Within this model, near the Galactic arms the observed gamma-ray spectral slope is not trivially related to the CR injection spectrum and energy dependence of the diffusion coefficient. We find unique signatures that agree with the Fermi-LAT observations. This model also provides a physical explanation for the difference between the local CR spectral slope and the CR slope inferred from the average gamma-ray spectrum.
The distribution of cosmic rays in the Galaxy at energies above few TeVs is still uncertain and this affects the expectations for the diffuse gamma flux produced by hadronic interactions of cosmic rays with the interstellar gas. We show that the TeV gamma-ray sky can provide interesting constraints. Namely, we compare the flux from the galactic plane measured by Argo-YBJ, HESS, HAWC and Milagro with the expected flux due to diffuse emission and point-like and extended sources observed by HESS showing that experimental data can already discriminate among different hyphoteses for cosmic ray distribution. The constraints can be strengthened if the contribution of sources not resolved by HESS is taken into account.