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Abstract The Galactic plane, harboring a diffuse neutrino flux, is a particularly interesting target in which to study potential cosmic-ray acceleration sites. Recent gamma-ray observations by HAWC and LHAASO have presented evidence for multiple Galactic sources that exhibit a spatially extended morphology and have energy spectra continuing beyond 100 TeV. A fraction of such emission could be produced by interactions of accelerated hadronic cosmic rays, resulting in an excess of high-energy neutrinos clustered near these regions. Using 10 years of IceCube data comprising track-like events that originate from charged-current muon neutrino interactions, we perform a dedicated search for extended neutrino sources in the Galaxy. We find no evidence for time-integrated neutrino emission from the potential extended sources studied in the Galactic plane. The most significant location, at 2.6σpost-trials, is a 1.°7 sized region coincident with the unidentified TeV gamma-ray source 3HWC J1951+266. We provide strong constraints on hadronic emission from several regions in the galaxy.
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Robust inference of the Galactic Centre gamma-ray excess spatial properties
ABSTRACT The gamma-ray Fermi-LAT Galactic Centre excess (GCE) has puzzled scientists for over 15 yr. Despite ongoing debates about its properties, and especially its spatial distribution, its nature remains elusive. We scrutinize how the estimated spatial morphology of this excess depends on models for the Galactic diffuse emission, focusing particularly on the extent to which the Galactic plane and point sources are masked. Our main aim is to compare a spherically symmetric morphology – potentially arising from the annihilation of dark matter (DM) particles – with a boxy morphology – expected if faint unresolved sources in the Galactic bulge dominate the excess emission. Recent claims favouring a DM-motivated template for the GCE are shown to rely on a specific Galactic bulge template, which performs worse than other templates for the Galactic bulge. We find that a non-parametric model of the Galactic bulge derived from the VISTA Variables in the Via Lactea survey results in a significantly better fit for the GCE than DM-motivated templates. This result is independent of whether a galprop-based model or a more non-parametric ring-based model is used to describe the diffuse Galactic emission. This conclusion remains true even when additional freedom is added in the background models, allowing for non-parametric modulation of the model components and substantially improving the fit quality. When adopted, optimized background models provide robust results in terms of preference for a boxy bulge morphology for the GCE, regardless of the mask applied to the Galactic plane.
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- PAR ID:
- 10522122
- Publisher / Repository:
- MNRAS
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Volume:
- 530
- Issue:
- 4
- ISSN:
- 0035-8711
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 4395 to 4411
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stae923
