English

Geminga contribution to the cosmic-ray positron excess according to the gamma-ray observations

High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena 2022-09-27 v2 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

We attempt to interpret the cosmic-ray positron excess by injection from the nearby pulsar Geminga, assuming a two-zone diffusion scenario and an injection spectrum with a low energy cutoff. Since the high energy positrons and electrons from Geminga can induce γ\gamma rays via inverse Compton scattering, we take into account the extended γ\gamma-ray observations around Geminga from HAWC for 10\sim 10 TeV and from Fermi-LAT for O(10)\mathcal{O}(10) GeV. According to the extended γ\gamma-ray observation claimed by an analysis of Fermi-LAT data, we find that Geminga could explain the positron excess for a 30%30\% energy conversion efficiency into positrons and electrons. However, based on the constraint on the extended γ\gamma rays given by another Fermi-LAT analysis, positrons from Geminga would be insufficient to account for the positron excess. A further robust analysis of Fermi-LAT data for the extended γ\gamma rays would be crucial to determine whether Geminga can explain the positron excess or not.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2205.07038,
  title  = {Geminga contribution to the cosmic-ray positron excess according to the gamma-ray observations},
  author = {Guang-Yao Zhou and Zhao-Huan Yu and Qiang Yuan and Hong-Hao Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2205.07038},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

14 pages, 2 figures; revisions to match the published version