Nuclear, Particle, Astroparticle and Cosmology (NUPAC) Seminars
The gamma-ray emission of globular clusters and its connection to dark matter
Presented by Addy Evans, Texas A&M
There are now 35 confirmed gamma-ray bright globular clusters (GCs) in the Milky Way. The millisecond pulsar (MSP) populations within these clusters are widely considered to be their primary source of gamma-ray emission. There are two proposed mechanisms for high-energy gamma-rays to be created in GCs by MSPs. The first is radiation from charged particles traveling along the open magnetic field lines of the pulsar, and the second is inverse Compton scattering (ICS) due to charged relativistic particles from the MSP upscattering starlight and CMB photons. The degree to which the ICS component contributes to GC gamma-ray emission is currently unknown. In this talk, I will discuss recent efforts by myself and collaborators to further understand the high-energy gamma-ray emission of globular clusters using gamma-ray data from both Fermi-LAT and the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) experiment as well as stellar kinematic data of GCs. I will also detail how we can utilize our understanding of gamma-ray emitting GCs to improve our searches for dark matter annihilation.
2:00 pm, Tuesday, August 23, 2022
PAIS-3205, PAIS
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