Speaker
Mr
Chad Brisbois
(Michigan Technological University)
Description
Recent work has suggested that spatially extended TeV emission from pulsars (TeV Halos), such as that seen corresponding to Geminga, Monogem, and HAWC J0543+233 is distinct from Pulsar Wind Nebulae seen in X-ray energies. The primary difference between the two is one of particle transport; for a PWN leptons are confined near the pulsar due to interactions between the pulsar wind and the surrounding medium, whereas for a TeV Halo the extent of the observed gamma-ray emission is limited by diffusion. Because this emission is expected to be isotropic, this opens the window to the discovery of invisible pulsars, in which the pulsed emission seen at other wavelengths is not aimed at the Earth. This presentation will focus on current efforts to characterize the population of TeV Halos in HAWC observations, which may constitute up to 40% of the sources in the dataset. Investigating the possibility of TeV Halos around young and millisecond pulsars will be discussed. Characterizing the TeV Halos for known pulsars is critical to discovering an as yet unseen source class of invisible pulsars.
Primary author
Mr
Chad Brisbois
(Michigan Technological University)
