Sources and Radiations of the Fermi Bubbles

TL;DR

This paper explores the origin and evolution of the Fermi Bubbles, proposing that tidal disruption events near the Galactic center generate large-scale structures and turbulence, which in turn produce gamma-ray and radio emissions.

Contribution

It introduces a hydrodynamic turbulence model driven by Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities to explain the nonthermal emissions of the Fermi Bubbles, linking energy release to star disruptions.

Findings

Tidal disruption events can supply enough energy to form the Fermi Bubbles.

RT instabilities excite turbulence, which may generate observable nonthermal emissions.

Hydrodynamic turbulence could explain gamma-ray and radio signals from the Bubbles.

Abstract

Two enigmatic gamma-ray features in the Galactic central region, known as Fermi Bubbles (FBs), were found from Fermi-LAT data. An energy release (e.g., by tidal disruption events in the Galactic center, GC), generates a cavity with a shock that expands into the local ambient medium of the Galactic halo. A decade or so ago, a phenomenological model of the FBs was suggested as a result of routine star disruptions by the supermassive black hole in the GC which might provide enough energy for large-scale structures, like the FBs. In 2020, analytical and numerical models of the FBs as a process of routine tidal disruption of stars near the GC were developed, which can provide enough cumulative energy to form and maintain large scale structures like the FBs. The disruption events are expected to be ten to hundred events per million years, providing the average power of energy release from the GC into the halo of 3E41 erg/s, which is needed to support the FBs. Analysis of the evolution of superbubbles in exponentially stratified disks concluded that the FB envelope would be destroyed by the Rayleigh-Taylor (RT) instabilities at late stages. The shell is composed of a swept-up gas of the bubble, whose thickness is much thinner in comparison to the size of the envelope. We assume that hydrodynamic turbulence is excited in the FB envelope by the RT instability. In this case, the universal energy spectrum of turbulence may be developed in the inertial range of wavenumbers of fluctuations (the Kolmogorov-Obukhov spectrum). From our model we suppose the power of the FBs is transformed partly into the energy of hydrodynamic turbulence in the envelope. If so, hydrodynamic turbulence may generate MHD-fluctuations, which accelerate cosmic rays there and generate gamma-ray and radio emission from the FBs. We hope that this model may interpret the observed nonthermal emission from the bubbles.