Related papers: The Positron Puzzle
A very interesting puzzle about the origin of electron and positron cosmic rays is deduced from the latests experimental results. We model the propagation of such cosmic rays in terms of a successfully tested two--zone propagation model.…
We study the origin of the positron excess observed in the local cosmic-ray spectrum at high energies, and relate it to the cosmic rays and gamma-ray emission across the entire Galaxy. In particular, we explore the hypothesis of a single,…
Bursts from the very early universe may lead to a detectable signal via the production of positrons, whose annihilation gives an observable X-ray signal. Using the absorption parameters for the annihilation photons of 511 keV, it is found…
Maps of the Galactic electron-positron annihilation radiation show evidence for three distinct and significant features: (1) a central bulge source, (2) emission in the Galactic plane, and (3) an enhancement of emission at positive…
The Galactic positrons, as observed by their annihilation gamma-ray line at 0.511 MeV, are difficult to account for with astrophysical sources. It has been proposed that they are produced instead by dark matter annihilation or decay in the…
The signature of positron annihilation, namely the 511 keV $\gamma$-ray line, was first detected coming from the direction of the Galactic center in the 1970's, but the source of Galactic positrons still remains a puzzle. The measured flux…
The e$^+$ e$^-$ annihilation line at 511 keV provides a unique probe for studying the distribution and origin of positrons in our Galaxy. The SPI spectrometer on INTEGRAL has observed this gamma-ray line for two decades. We analyze 20 years…
Clusters of galaxies are enriched with positrons from jets of active galactic nuclei (AGNs) or from the interaction of cosmic rays with the intracluster gas. We follow the cooling of these positrons and show that their eventual annihilation…
Recent observations of the 511 keV positron-electron annihilation line in the Galactic centre region by the INTEGRAL/SPI spectrometer have stirred up new speculations about the origin of the large corresponding positron injection rate.…
Two different model-independent mapping techniques have been applied to OSSE, SMM, TGRS and balloon data and reveal a feature in the 0.511 MeV electron-positron annihilation radiation pattern of our galaxy centered roughly at l=-2 deg. and…
The positron fraction in cosmic rays was found to be steadily increasing in function of energy, above $\sim$10 GeV. This behaviour contradicts standard astrophysical mechanisms, in which positrons are secondary particles, produced in the…
The rise of the cosmic ray positron fraction with energy, as first observed with high confidence by PAMELA, implies that a large flux of high energy positrons has been recently (or is being currently) injected into the local volume of the…
The electron-positron annihilation source in the Galactic center region has recently been observed with INTEGRAL/SPI, which shows that this 511 keV source is strong and its extension is consistent with the Galactic bulge geometry. The…
Microquasars are stellar-mass black holes accreting matter from a companion star and ejecting plasma jets at almost the speed of light. They are analogues of quasars that contain supermassive black holes of $10^6$ to $10^{10}$ solar masses.…
The electron and positron cosmic rays observations have impulsed a hot debate regarding the origin of such particles. Their propagation in the galactic medium is modeled according to a successfully tested two--zone propagation model. The…
We calculate the fluxes of 511 KeV photons from the Galactic bulge caused by positrons produced in the decays of relic particles with masses less than 100 MeV. In particular, we tighten the constraints on sterile neutrinos over a large…
we study the possibility of pulsar winds in the Galactic center (GC) to produce the 511 keV line. We propose that there may exist three possible scenarios of pulsar winds as the positron sources: normal pulsars; rapidly spinning strongly…
An electron-positron atmosphere is inevitably created around a black hole accretion disc, the spectrum of which extends to MeV energies. Pairs created in photon-photon collisions outside the disc are blown away by soft radiation (which…
Extinct radio pulsars, in which stationary, self-sustaining generation of a relativistic electron-positron plasma becomes impossible when rotation brakes down, can be sources of a subrelativistic flux of positrons and electrons. We assume…
Assuming Galactic positrons do not go far before annhilating, a difference between the observed 511 keV annihilation flux distribution and that of positron production, expected from beta-plus decay in Galactic iron nucleosynthesis, was…