On the potential of bright, young pulsars to power ultra-high gamma-ray sources

TL;DR

This paper explores how young, bright pulsars and their pulsar wind nebulae could be the sources of ultra-high-energy gamma rays beyond 100 TeV, highlighting their potential as Galactic PeVatrons and analyzing observational constraints.

Contribution

It introduces a fundamental energy limit for gamma-ray photons from PWNe based on pulsar spin-down power and compares it with recent LHAASO observations, providing new insights into potential PeVatron sources.

Findings

Gamma-ray luminosity can reach up to 10% of pulsar spin-down power.

Maximum photon energy scales with pulsar spin-down luminosity as approximately 0.9 times that to the power 0.65.

LHAASO observations are consistent with PWNe being potential sources of ultra-high-energy gamma rays.

Abstract

The recent discovery of a new population of ultra-high-energy gamma-ray sources with spectra extending beyond 100 TeV revealed the presence of Galactic PeVatrons - cosmic-ray factories accelerating particles to PeV energies. These sources, except for the one associated with the Crab Nebula, are not yet identified. With an extension of 1 degree or more, most of them contain several potential counterparts, including Supernova Remnants, young stellar clusters and Pulsar Wind Nebulae (PWNe), which can perform as PeVatrons and thus power the surrounding diffuse ultra-high energy gamma-ray structures. In the case of PWNe, gamma rays are produced by electrons, accelerated at the pulsar wind termination shock, through the inverse Compton scattering of 2.7 K CMB radiation. The high conversion efficiency of pulsar rotational power to relativistic electrons, combined with the short cooling timescales, allow gamma-ray luminosities up to the level of $L_\gamma \sim 0.1 \dot{E}$. The pulsar spin-down luminosity, $\dot E$, also determines the absolute maximum energy of individual photons: $E_{\rm \gamma~\rm max}\approx 0.9 \dot E_{36}^{0.65}~~\rm{PeV}$. This fundamental constraint dominates over the condition set by synchrotron energy losses of electrons for young PWNe with typical magnetic field of $\approx$100$\mu$G with $\dot{E} \lesssim 10^{37}\ \rm erg/s$. We discuss the implications of $E_{\rm \gamma~\rm max}$ by comparing it with the highest energy photons reported by LHAASO from a dozen of ultra-high-energy sources. Whenever a PWN origin of the emission is possible, we use the LHAASO measurements to set upper limits on the nebular magnetic field.