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Register a new userThe characteristics of the Galactic center excess measured with 11 years of Fermi-LAT data
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Mattia Di Mauro
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The excess of $gamma$ rays in the data measured by Fermi-LAT from the Galactic center region is one of the most intriguing mysteries in Astroparticle Physics. This Galactic center excess (GCE), has been measured with respect to different interstellar emission models (IEMs), source catalogs, data selections and techniques. Although several proposed interpretations have appeared in the literature, there are not firm conclusions as to its origin. The main difficulty in solving this puzzle lies in modeling a region of such complexity and thus precisely measuring the characteristics of the GCE. In this paper, we use 11 years of Fermi-LAT data, state of the art IEMs, and the newest 4FGL source catalog to provide precise measurements of the energy spectrum, spatial morphology, position, and sphericity of the GCE. We find that the GCE has a spectrum which is peaked at a few GeV and is well fit with a log-parabola. The normalization of the spectrum changes by roughly $60%$ when using different IEMs, data selections and analysis techniques. The spatial distribution of the GCE is compatible with a dark matter (DM) template produced with a generalized NFW density profile with slope $gamma = 1.2-1.3$. No energy evolution is measured for the GCE morphology between $0.6-30$ GeV at a level larger than $10%$ of the $gamma$ average value, which is 1.25. The analysis of the GCE modeled with a DM template divided into quadrants shows that the spectrum and spatial morphology of the GCE is similar in different regions around the Galactic center. Finally, the GCE centroid is compatible with the Galactic center, with best-fit position between $l=[-0.3^{circ},0.0^{circ}],b=[-0.1^{circ},0.0^{circ}]$, and it is compatible with a spherical symmetric morphology. In particular, fitting the DM spatial profile with an ellipsoid gives a major-to-minor axis ratio between 0.8-1.2.
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An excess of $gamma$ rays in the data measured by the Fermi Large Area Telescope in the direction of the Galactic center has been reported in several publications. This excess, labeled as the Galactic center excess (GCE), is detected analyzing the data with different interstellar emission models, point source catalogs and analysis techniques. The characteristics of the GCE, recently measured with unprecedented precision, are all compatible with dark matter particles (DM) annihilating in the main halo of our Galaxy, even if other interpretations are still not excluded. We investigate the DM candidates that fit the observed GCE spectrum and spatial morphology. We assume a simple scenario with DM annihilating into a single channel but we inspect also more complicated models with two and three channels. We perform a search for a $gamma$-ray flux from a list of 48 Milky Way dwarf spheroidal galaxies (dSphs) using state-of-the-art estimation of the DM density in these objects. Since we do not find any significant signal from the dSphs, we put upper limits on the annihilation cross section that result to be compatible with the DM candidate that fits the GCE. However, we find that the GCE DM signal is excluded by the AMS-02 $bar{p}$ flux data for all hadronic and semi-hadronic annihilation channels unless the vertical size of the diffusion halo is smaller than 2 kpc -- which is in tension with radioactive cosmic ray fluxes and radio data. Furthermore, AMS-02 $e^+$ data rule out pure or mixed channels with a component of $e^+ e^-$. The only DM candidate that fits the GCE spectrum and is compatible with constraints obtained with the combined dSphs analysis and the AMS-02 $bar{p}$ and $e^+$ data annihilates purely into $mu^+mu^-$, has a mass of 60 GeV and roughly a thermal cross section.
The center of the Milky Way is offering one of the most striking mystery in Astroparticle Physics. An excess of gamma rays (GCE) has been measured by several groups in the data collected by the Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) towards the Galactic center region. The spectrum and spatial morphology of the GCE have been claimed by some groups to be compatible with a signal from the Galactic halo of dark matter (DM). Instead, other analyses have demonstrated that the GCE properties, e.g., its energy spectrum, highly depend on the choice of the Galactic interstellar emission (IEM) model source catalogs and analysis techniques. In this paper we investigate the sensitivity of Fermi-LAT to detect the characteristics of the GCE. In particular we simulate the GCE as given by DM and we verify that, with a perfect knowledge of the background components, its energy spectrum, position, spatial morphology and symmetry is properly measured. We also inspect two more realist cases for which there are imperfections in the IEM model. In the first we have an un-modeled gamma-ray source, constituted by the low-latitude component of the Fermi bubbles. In the second we simulate the data with one IEM template and analyze the data with an other. We verify that a mismodeling of the IEM introduces a systematics of about 10-15% in the GCE energy spectrum between 1-10 GeV and about 5% in the value of the slope for a NFW DM density profile, which is used to fit the GCE spatial morphology. Finally, we show how the GCE would be detected in case of alternative processes such as gamma-ray emission from a bulge population of pulsars or from electrons and positrons or protons injected from the Galactic center. We demonstrate that for each of these cases there is a distinctive smoking gun signature that would help to identify the real mechanism behind the origin of the GCE.
Circinus galaxy is a nearby composite starburst/AGN system. In this work we re-analyze the GeV emission from Circinus with 10 years of {it Fermi}-LAT Pass 8 data. In the energy range of 1-500 GeV, the spectrum can be well fitted by a power-law model with a photon index of $Gamma$ = $2.20pm0.14$, and its photon flux is $(5.90pm1.04) times 10^{-10}$ photons cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$. Our 0.1-500 GeV flux is several times lower than that reported in the previous literature, which is roughly in compliance with the empirical relation for star-forming and local group galaxies and might be reproduced by the interaction between cosmic rays and the interstellar medium. The ratio between the $gamma$-ray luminosity and the total infrared luminosity is near the proton calorimetric limit, indicating that Circinus may be a proton calorimeter. However, marginal evidence for variability of the $gamma$-ray emission is found in the timing analysis, which may indicate the activity of AGN jet. More {it Fermi}-LAT data and future observation of CTA are required to fully reveal the origin of its $gamma$-ray emission.
We show that the Galactic Center Excess (GCE) emission, as recently updated by the Fermi-LAT Collaboration, could be explained by the sum of Fermi-bubbles-like emission plus dark matter (DM) annihilation, in the context of a scalar-singlet Higgs portal scenario (SHP). In fact, the standard SHP, where the DM particle, $S$, only has renormalizable interactions with the Higgs, is non-operational due to strong constraints, specially from DM direct detection limits. Thus we consider a most economical extension, called ESHP (for extended SHP), which simply consists in the addition of a second (heavier) scalar singlet in the dark sector. The second scalar can be integrated-out, leaving a standard SHP plus a dimension-6 operator. Essentially, this model has only two relevant parameters (the DM mass and the coupling of the dim-6 operator). DM annihilation occurs mainly into two Higgs bosons, $SSrightarrow hh$. We demonstrate that, despite its economy, the ESHP model provides excellent fits to the GCE (with p-value $sim 0.6-0.7$) for very reasonable values of the parameters, in particular $m_S simeq 130$ GeV. This is achieved without conflicting with other observables and keeping the $S-$particle relic density at the accepted value for the DM content in the universe.
An anomalous emission component at energies of a few GeV and located towards the inner Galaxy is present in the Fermi-LAT data. It is known as the Fermi-LAT GeV excess. Using almost 8 years of data we reanalyze the characteristics of this excess with SkyFACT, a novel tool that combines image reconstruction with template fitting techniques. We find that an emission profile that traces stellar mass in the boxy and nuclear bulge provides the best description of the excess emission, providing strong circumstantial evidence that the excess is due to a stellar source population in the Galactic bulge. We find a luminosity to stellar mass ratio of $(2.1pm 0.2)times 10^{27} mathrm{,erg,s^{-1},M_odot^{-1}}$ for the boxy bulge, and of $(1.4pm 0.6)times 10^{27}mathrm{,erg,s^{-1},M_odot^{-1}}$ for the nuclear bulge. Stellar mass related templates are preferred over conventional DM profiles with high statistical significance.
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