2025ApJ...978..162X -
Astrophys. J., 978, 162 (2025/January-2)
Constraining Anisotropic Diffusion between Geminga and Earth with the Cosmic-Ray Electron and Positron Spectrum.
XIA J., BI X., FANG K. and LIU S.
Abstract (from CDS):
The gamma-ray halo around Geminga indicates significant suppression of cosmic-ray diffusion. One possible explanation for this phenomenon is the projection effect of slow diffusion perpendicular to the mean magnetic field (characterized by the diffusion coefficient D⊥) within an anisotropic diffusion framework. In this scenario, the diffusion coefficient parallel to the mean field (D∥) can still be large, enabling electrons and positrons (e±) produced by Geminga to efficiently travel to Earth along the magnetic field lines, possibly resulting in a detectable e± flux. In this work, we first determine the basic parameters of the anisotropic model using the morphology and spectral measurements of the Geminga halo and then predict the flux of e± produced by Geminga at the location of Earth. We find that the e– + e+ spectrum of DAMPE can give crucial constraint on the anisotropic diffusion model: to ensure that the predicted spectrum does not exceed the measurements, the Alfvén Mach number of the turbulent magnetic field (MA) should not be less than 0.75, corresponding to D∥/D⊥ ≲ 3 given that ${D}_{\perp }={D}_{\parallel }{M}_{A}^{4}$. This implies that a significant suppression of D∥ relative to the average value in the Galaxy may still be necessary. Furthermore, we find that under the anisotropic diffusion model, Geminga can produce a very sharp feature around 1 TeV in the e– + e+ spectrum, which could naturally explain the peculiar 1.4 TeV excess tentatively observed by DAMPE.
Abstract Copyright:
© 2025. The Author(s). Published by the American Astronomical Society.
Journal keyword(s):
Cosmic rays - Interstellar medium - Magnetic fields - Pulsar wind nebulae
Simbad objects:
1
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