Mirages and Large TeV Halo-Pulsar Offsets from Cosmic Ray Propagation

TL;DR

This paper proposes that asymmetric cosmic ray propagation near pulsars can produce multiple TeV gamma-ray sources and explain observed offsets, challenging the assumption of symmetric diffusion.

Contribution

It introduces a novel explanation for TeV halo offsets and multiple sources based on asymmetric cosmic ray diffusion, without requiring additional accelerators.

Findings

Asymmetric diffusion can produce multiple gamma-ray sources.

Offsets between TeV halos and pulsars can be naturally explained.

Several observed sources are consistent with this asymmetric propagation model.

Abstract

The study of extended $\gamma$-ray sources usually assumes symmetric diffusion of cosmic rays. However, recent observations of multiple sources near single pulsars and significant offsets between TeV halo centroids and their parent pulsars suggest that this assumption is overly simplistic. In this Letter, we demonstrate that asymmetric propagation of cosmic rays near their accelerators may create multiple TeV sources instead of a single symmetric source. This mechanism also explains the large offsets between TeV halo centroids and their pulsars. We demonstrate that several perplexing detected sources can be naturally explained without invoking additional invisible accelerators.