Stringent Constraint on Galactic Positron Production
Astrophysics
2008-11-26 v2 High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
Nuclear Theory
Abstract
The intense 0.511 MeV gamma-ray line emission from the Galactic Center observed by INTEGRAL requires a large annihilation rate of nonrelativistic positrons. If these positrons are injected at even mildly relativistic energies, higher-energy gamma rays will also be produced. We calculate the gamma-ray spectrum due to inflight annihilation and compare to the observed diffuse Galactic gamma-ray data. Even in a simplified but conservative treatment, we find that the positron injection energies must be MeV, which strongly constrains models for Galactic positron production.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0512411,
title = {Stringent Constraint on Galactic Positron Production},
author = {John F. Beacom and Hasan Yuksel},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0512411},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
4 pages, 2 figures; minor revisions, accepted for publication in PRL