Contribution to diffuse gamma-rays in the Galactic center region from unresolved millisecond pulsars

Abstract

The diffuse gamma-rays in the Galactic center region have been studied. We propose that there exists a population of millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in the Galactic Center, which will emit GeV gamma-rays through the synchrotron-curvature radiation as predicted by outer gap models. These GeV gamma-rays from unresolved millisecond pulsars probably contribute to the diffuse gamma-ray spectrum detected by EGRET which displays a break at a few GeV. We have used the Monte Carlo method to obtain the simulated samples of millisecond pulsars in the Galactic center region covered by EGRET ($\sim 1.5^\circ$) according to the different period and magnetic field distributions from the observed millisecond pulsars in the Galactic field and globular clusters, and superposed their synchrotron-curvature spectra to derive the total GeV flux. Our simulated results suggest that there probably exist about 6000 unresolved millisecond pulsars in the region of the angular resolution for EGRET, whose emissions could contribute significantly to the observed diffuse gamma-rays in the Galactic center.