Gamma-ray spectral properties of the Galactic globular clusters: constraint on the numbers of millisecond pulsars

TL;DR

This study analyzes gamma-ray spectra of 30 globular clusters using Fermi data, modeling MSP contributions to understand their numbers and spectral properties, revealing that encounter rate alone doesn't determine MSP populations.

Contribution

The paper introduces a spectral model for gamma-ray emission from MSPs in globular clusters and estimates MSP numbers, comparing them with radio observations and highlighting factors influencing MSP populations.

Findings

27 GCs' gamma-ray spectra explained by MSPs

Estimated MSP numbers align with radio observations

Encounter rate is not the sole factor for MSP abundance

Abstract

We study the gamma-ray spectra of 30 globular clusters (GCs) thus far detected with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Presuming that gamma-ray emission of a GC comes from millisecond pulsars (MSPs) contained in, a model that generates spectra for the GCs is built based on the gamma-ray properties of the detected MSP sample. We fit the GCs' spectra with the model, and for 27 of them, their emission can be explained with arising from MSPs. The spectra of the other three, NGC 7078, 2MS-GC01, and Terzan 1, can not be fit with our model, indicating that MSPs' emission should not be the dominant one in the first two and the third one has a unique hard spectrum. We also investigate six nearby GCs that have relatively high encounter rates as the comparison cases. The candidate spectrum of NGC 6656 can be fit with that of one MSP, supporting its possible association with the gamma-ray source at its position. The five others do not have detectable gamma-ray emission. Their spectral upper limits set limits of $\leq 1$ MSPs in them, consistent with the numbers of radio MSPs found in them. The estimated numbers of MSPs in the gamma-ray GCs generally match well those reported for radio pulsars. Our studies of the gamma-ray GCs and the comparison nearby GCs indicate that the encounter rate should not be the only factor determining the number of MSPs a GC contains.