Related papers: Distribution of Positron Annihilation Radiation
We have obtained spectra of the Galactic center at energies 400-600 keV from high-resolution data acquired by the TGRS Ge spectrometer on board the WIND mission during 1995-1997. The data were obtained using an on-board occulter, and are…
The first gamma-ray line originating from outside the solar system that was ever detected is the 511 keV emission from positron annihilation in the Galaxy. Despite 30 years of intense theoretical and observational investigation, the main…
The 511 keV electron-positron annihilation line, most recently characterized by the INTEGRAL/SPI experiment, is highly concentrated towards the Galactic centre. Its origin remains unknown despite decades of scrutiny. We propose a novel…
The positron annihilation gamma-ray signal in the Milky Way (MW) shows a puzzling morphology: a very bright bulge and a very low surface-brightness disk. A coherent explanation of the positron origin, propagation through the Galaxy and…
The International Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory, i.e. the INTEGRAL satellite of ESA, in orbit since about 3 years, performs gamma-ray observations of the sky in the 15 keV to 8 MeV energy range. Thanks to its imager IBIS, and in…
We have processed the data accumulated with INTEGRAL SPI during 4 years (~ 51 Ms) to study the Galactic ``diffuse'' emission morphology in the 20 keV to 8 MeV energy range. To achieve this objective, we have derived simultaneously an…
We present a spectral analysis of the e+e- annihilation emission from the Galactic Centre region based on the first year of measurements made with the spectrometer SPI of the INTEGRAL mission. We have found that the annihilation spectrum…
The annihilation of cosmic positrons ($e^+$) with electrons in the interstellar medium (ISM) results in the strongest persistent gamma-ray line signal in the sky. For 50 years, this 511 keV emission has puzzled observers and theoreticians.…
The first detection of a gamma ray line with an energy of about 500 keV from the center our Galaxy dates back to the early seventies. Thanks to the astrophysical application of high spectral resolution detectors, it was soon clear that this…
We consider positron propagation in the interstellar medium and show that the positrons from the beta-plus decay chains of the radioactive nuclei Ni-56, Ti-44, and Al-26, produced in Galactic supernovae, can fully account for all the…
The INTEGRAL observatory has been performing a deep survey of the Galactic central radian since 2003, with the goal of both extracting a catalog of sources and gaining insight into the Galactic diffuse emission. This paper concentrates on…
Although the annihilation of positrons towards the Galactic centre was established more than 50 years ago through the detection of a 511 keV $\gamma$-ray line, the origin of the positrons remains unknown. The $\gamma$-ray line should be…
Electron-positron annihilation radiation from the Galactic Center region has been detected since the seventies, but its astrophysical origin is still a topic of a scientific debate. We have analyzed data of the gamma-ray imager IBIS/ISGRI…
The electron-positron annihilation gamma-ray signal at 511 keV in the Milky Way is investigated towards a possible dark matter interpretation. If all bulge positrons were created by dark matter particle annihilation, the satellite galaxies…
We use 15 years of $\gamma$-ray data from INTEGRAL/SPI in a refined investigation of the morphology of the Galactic bulge positron annihilation signal. Our spatial analysis confirms that the signal traces the old stellar population 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 precision measurement of the 1809 keV gamma-ray line from Galactic $^{26}$Al is one of the goals of the SPI spectrometer on INTEGRAL with its Ge detector camera. We aim for determination of the detailed shape of this gamma-ray line, and…
With the launch of ESA's INTEGRAL satellite in october 2002, a gamma-ray observatory will become available to the scientific community that combines imaging and spectroscopic capacities in the 20 keV to 10 MeV energy range. In this paper,…
Gamma-ray line emission from radioactive decay of 60Fe provides constraints on nucleosynthesis in massive stars and supernovae. The spectrometer SPI on board INTEGRAL has accumulated nearly three years of data on gamma-ray emission from the…
The Galaxy hosts a widespread population of low-energy positrons revealed by successive generations of gamma-ray telescopes through a bright annihilation emission from the bulge region, with a fainter contribution from the inner disk. The…