Evidence of TeV Halos Around Millisecond Pulsars

TL;DR

This study provides evidence that millisecond pulsars emit very high-energy gamma rays, similar to the Geminga TeV-halo, challenging pulsar-based explanations for the Galactic Center gamma-ray excess.

Contribution

First detection of TeV halos around millisecond pulsars using HAWC data, indicating they produce significant very high-energy gamma-ray emission.

Findings

MSPs favor the presence of TeV gamma-ray emission.

Stacked analysis shows significant gamma-ray emission from MSPs.

Results challenge pulsar explanations for the Galactic Center gamma-ray excess.

Abstract

Using data from the HAWC gamma-ray Telescope, we have studied a sample of 37 millisecond pulsars (MSPs), selected for their spindown power and proximity. From among these MSP, we have identified four which favor the presence of very high-energy gamma-ray emission at a level of $(2\Delta \ln \mathcal{L})^{1/2} \ge 2.5$. Adopting a correlation between the spindown power and gamma-ray luminosity of each pulsar, we performed a stacked likelihood analysis of these 37 MSPs, finding that the data supports the conclusion that these sources emit very high-energy gamma-rays at a level of $(2\Delta \ln \mathcal{L})^{1/2} = 4.24$. Among sets of randomly selected sky locations within HAWC's field-of-view, less than 1\% of such realizations yielded such high statistical significance. Our analysis suggests that MSPs produce very high-energy gamma-ray emission with a similar efficiency to that observed from the Geminga TeV-halo, $\eta_{\rm MSP} = (0.39-1.08) \times \eta_{\rm Geminga}$. This conclusion poses a significant challenge for pulsar interpretations of the Galactic Center gamma-ray excess, as it suggests that any population of MSPs potentially capable of producing the GeV excess would also produce TeV-scale emission in excess of that observed by HESS from this region. Future observations by CTA will be able to substantially clarify this situation.